Tuesday 24 March 2009

Age of Stupid

Yes its the climate change film that everyone's talking about and its being shown several times a day at the Edinburgh Filmhouse and other cinemas across the UK. It's an excellent (though admittedly flawed in places) film, using an engaging mix of personal stories (including an 80 something mountaineer in the Alps, an entrepeneur setting up a new airline in India and women in Nigeria whose lives have been blighted by the effects of oil exploration), animation, interviews, dramatic monologue and excerpts from news programmes to bring a range of climate related issues to the viewer's attention. The Filmhouse is also holding a series of talks after selected showings of the films to engage audiences further in some of the issues around climate change. The talk we attended was disappointing, it was ostensibly about biodiversity but ended up being about wind turbines and was too short to allow any meaningful discussion. There was also the usual feeling of being asked to do small things to address a huge problem.

I was disappointed by the adverts before the film, the sound was muted like some sort of pathetic attempt at subversion or apology, but it was still 15 minutes encouraging us to buy cars and stuff (though at least there was an ad for the Co-operative Bank in there).

Suitably Despairing was at a different showing of the same film in the same cinema and you can read his post here. (I edited this post after commenting on his!).

To find out more and get involved visit The Age of Stupid campaign website.

3 comments:

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The Weaver of Grass said...

Juliet - the adverts really annoy me - even on TV - I try not to watch ITV because of the adverts - we are bombarded with cars, cars, and cars - if there is a "green" advert I have certainly never seen it. All they do is pay lip-service to the green ideal.

Janice Thomson said...

I can say that the effects of oil exploration in India and other areas close by is being addressed by some groups I know of. A very close friend is an engineer who specializes in diminishing the ecological effects of the oil production fields there. I wish more companies would take up this cause.