Venice (AFP)

Behind the face of the climate, an "intellectual and shy" teenager, crushed by responsibility: this is how Greta Thunberg described herself during the presentation of a new documentary retracing her fight since day one, at the Venice Film Festival.

The film, "I am Greta", presented out of competition, follows the epic of the young Swede who has succeeded in mobilizing millions of young people around the world and in meeting heads of state to urge them to act for the planet, since her birth. very first day of "school strike for the climate" in 2018 in front of the Stockholm Parliament.

"Some people spread conspiracy theories, say that I don't think or speak for myself, or that another person writes my speeches. In this movie, you can see for yourself that it is wrong ! ", specified to AFP the interested party, during a videoconference of press at the Mostra of Venice (Italy).

The documentary alternates images of demonstrations and meetings, from Pope Francis to French President Emmanuel Macron, scenes of the intimacy of a teenage girl almost like the others, in her room or baking a cake with her mother, and sequences in the innumerable night trains taken with his father to cross Europe.

"We understand that she is not doing all this to become famous or to be successful on social networks, but that she is really passionate about the climate crisis," said the director, who followed her like her shadow for one year.

- "Such a responsibility" -

"You managed to portray me as I am and not as the media describes me. I am not the naive, angry kid who shouts at world leaders at the UN General Assembly, I am a nerd person. and shy, ”Greta Thunberg replied.

Intervened in countless media, followed by four million people on Twitter, the young woman with blond braids, now the heroine of a documentary on the big screen, would like to see the media focus less on her than on the climate, but assumes to be became "a kind of bridge so that people can better identify and understand the climate crisis".

The film, during which nothing seems to be able to stop the iron will of the young girl, suffering from Asperger's syndrome, reveals a rare moment of despondency in the face of the task.

"It's such a responsibility ... I don't want to have to do it," she said in a sob, amid the raging waves of the Atlantic Ocean, on the catamaran she took to New York. (United States).

Fighting climate change, "we (the young) shouldn't have to do it, but rather the adults, the people in power who caused this crisis!", Repeated Greta Thunberg during the presentation of the film.

Two years after the start of the mobilization, in a world upset by the coronavirus, Greta Thunberg has resumed classes.

But says he wants to continue his fight against climate change more than ever.

"We need more science, to do more research, but above all we must act immediately, at the political level and to change social norms", she took care to add, before shortening his intervention to return to class.

© 2020 AFP