drs. Renée Scheltema MA BA

About Renée Scheltema

‘Normal is Over’ is a globetrotting documentary thats more focused on SOLUTIONS than problems. Award-winning filmmaker and investigative journalist Renée Scheltema, provides a comprehensive look at ways to make the world a better, greener, and more sustainable place. Renée investigates the cause, and symptoms of our crisis while offering solutions, which could be implemented immediately, from practical everyday fixes to rethinking the overarching myths of our time.

After a screening of Normal is Over, during a Q and A, or at a lecture, Renée starts the dialogue about how our economic and financial system, which depends on unconstrained economic growth, connects issues like climate change, species extinction, the refugee crisis and the widening gap between the rich and the poor. It will become clear that these and other problems like our financial crisis are symptoms of a deeper problem. Not stand-alone issues. Travelling the world with an open mind, Renée has met many experts and pioneers all over the world, trying to stave off global decline, concentrating on matters such as ecological economics, organic agriculture, renewable energy, saving species, reducing our carbon footprints, and sustainable finance. The film mixes accurate, relevant content with humor, and suggests ways to take positive practical action and change our lifestyles for future generations.

During 40 years of green thinking and after 4.5 years of working on this film, Renée concludes that the extinction of plants and animal species, climate change, COVID, the refugee problem, the financial crises, increasingly unmanageable nations, unhealthy food production, etc. are symptoms rather than separate, independent problems.