Robert Redford hailed The Prince of Wales as “incredible” as the pair appeared together at the inaugural Sundance London film and music festival recently.
The veteran actor, president and founder of the Sundance Institute, paid tribute to The Prince at the premiere of Harmony: A New Way Of Looking At Our World at the O2 Arena. The film, narrated by and starring The Prince, tells the story of how His Royal Highness has worked with environmental activists, government and business leaders, artists, architects and visionaries to address the global environmental and economic crisis and seek a more sustainable, spiritual and harmonious relationship with the planet.
Redford, who has met The Prince on several previous occasions, said they had a “common, shared feeling about the importance of our environment and sustainability that has been going back years and years”.
He told the audience of cinema-goers and invited guests: “That concern has been manifested by action. What Prince Charles has done to commit to that ideal is just incredible. I think he has been ahead of the curve – he has been way ahead. And I know what that feeling is, to be ahead of the curve and castigated for it. It is our collective responsibility to do whatever we can to maintain sustainability.”
He said the 90-minute film “speaks so much to the man behind it”, and added: “I can’t begin to tell you what this man, this human being, has done to talk about how important human beings are.”
The Prince introduced the film, made by Stuart Sender and Julie Bergman Sender and based on the book of the same name that he co-wrote with Tony Juniper and Ian Skelly. The Prince said he was “enormously touched and honoured” both by Redford’s comments and the fact he had asked to show Harmony at the festival.
Remarking how it was the first time Sundance had been held outside of the US, The Prince was greeted by applause when he said to the audience: “I think we owe him a huge debt of gratitude for that.”
His Royal Highness jokingly added that he hoped those watching the film, the second The Prince has made on the environment following The Earth In Balance in 1990, “would stay awake for most of it”.
The Prince said: “Twenty years later, the dangers, the challenges, are even more intense and the urgency is even greater to try to do something about this – if nothing else, for the sake of our children and grandchildren and all who come after us.”
The Prince said resources were running out at a rapid rate, but he stressed that changes can still be made.
His Royal Highness added: “Somehow, over the last 250 years or so, we have decided we can operate actually outside of the bounds that nature sets, without having to pay a penalty for that. All we wanted to do with this film is to show people that there is, perhaps, another way of looking at things now. We have carried on in a 19th-Century approach to the way we operate for too long. We are now discovering that there are some limitations and we need to look again.”
The Prince and Redford had met most recently in March last year when the actor joined The Prince for tea at Clarence House.
Stuart Sender said of the premiere: “It doesn’t really get any better than to have The Prince of Wales and Robert Redford here to introduce this film. We hope it does justice to The Prince’s vision of a different way of looking at the world. These are two men who are real groundbreakers and have been ahead of the curve on a lot of issues, about preserving the environment, being outspoken and making sure people who don’t have a voice get heard.”
The Senders hosted an extended question and answer session after the film, which was applauded by the audience as the credits rolled.
Source: PrinceOfWales.gov.uk
