Climate Fiction - How do viewers of an animated climate fiction film discuss their climate emotions?

Emotional distress in response to the climate crisis is rising within our society. It has been suggested that climate fiction could display a means to engage with one’s climate emotions and provide a starting point for the discussion of them. This study analyses how participants discuss their climate emotions after watching the stop-motion animated short film “Migrants”. The reflexive thematic analyses revealed five themes, which covered a variety of emotional expressions ranging from viewing the film as a metaphor for real-world problems and climate change with its consequences to a moral assessment of the issue. The main findings of this study include that that animated climate fiction short films have the potential to be used as a creative tool to explore and discuss climate emotions, to confront one's own moral values and to confirm one's own climate-friendly behaviour, and can promote meaning-oriented coping with climate emotions.