— By Andru Shively — 

We’re real film buffs here. Bonafide cinephiles. What we really like are documentaries, so imagine our delight – and initial perplexity – when we learned that Plastic Fantastic won the Audience Award at Germany’s SWR Documentary Festival held earlier this summer in Stuttgart. The climate doc from director Isa Willinger delves into the global plastics crisis and explores possible solutions for facing it, giving voice to a variety of protagonists from industry experts to scientists to citizen activists, while also drawing attention to issues like greenwashing and climate racism.

It comes as no surprise that the film, which has been nominated for numerous other awards as well, is resonating with audiences and making a name for itself. We point out, however, that this name is a popular one: the prizewinner should not be confused with another Plastic Fantastic documentary that preceded it by just a month – this one about the cosmetic surgery industry – nor should it be mistaken for a certain, long-running, end-of-week plastics column, whose editorial team at press time were still waiting for their award…