https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5755Rv7NwxE
🎞 Sportswashing: Greenpeace Calls Out the Winter OILympics
A powerful pro-environment campaign film created by Studio Birthplace in collaboration with Greenpeace Italy that dramatizes the irony of a major fossil fuel company sponsoring the 2026 Winter Olympics — an event whose future is directly threatened by the climate crisis. The video uses stark CG imagery to call out “sportswashing,” where polluters use sport sponsorship to polish their public image even as their emissions melt the very winter landscapes that make the Games possible.
⚠️ Conceptual visual metaphor (“Oilympics”) — CG environments show winter athletes overtaken by oil and pollution, amplifying the contradiction of fossil sponsorship.
🧠 Narrative with purpose — the piece isn’t just aesthetic motion design: it’s part of a broader activist call pushing the IOC to reject fossil fuel partnerships that risk the future of winter sports.
🌀 Atmospheric winter world built in CG by Tim Smit / Redivider Studio, with snowy landscapes and athlete figures that contrast sharply with creeping oil imagery.
⚡️ Collaborative production — Greenpeace’s Frames of Change Project, with a creative team focused on climate messaging rather than commercial branding.
📢 Real-world impact — the campaign was paired with a live stunt in Milan’s Piazza Duomo featuring Olympic rings drenched in oil, amplifying the film’s message in the public sphere.
🎬 Credits
Client: Greenpeace Italy
Production: Studio Birthplace / Frames of Change Project
Direction: Jorik Dozy & Sil van der Woerd
VFX: Redivider Studio / Tim Smit
Sound Design: Joe Wills
Score: Antonio Vivaldi’s “Winter” (recording)
#motiondesign #vfx #cg #socialimpact #sportswashing #climate #greenpeace #winterolympics #studiobirthplace #redividerstudio #activism #environmentaldesign #conceptfilm #Oilympics
YouTube
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