This is a guest post by Zach Roberts.
As a documentary producer, I watch more than my fair share of environmental protest documentaries — probably about 20 a year. And almost all of them have the same, vague message: we need to do something!
Their scenes re-play like a bad video montage in my mind: earnest young people speaking at podiums, boring climatologists rambling on about the coming end of the world, forest fires, melting ice shelves, you know how it goes. In the lefty journalism world, we call this “preaching to the choir.”
Then there’s Disruption, which is not so much a protest documentary as a call to arms. In an interview, co-director Jared P. Scott classified it under new genre of documentary — ‘action films.‘ These are films that send a clear message about what must be done and then give viewers the information they need to actually get it done. And that’s Disruption in a nutshell.
The documentary, made in collaboration with the organizers of the People’s Climate March, uses a mix of familiar footage from the likes of Yann Arthus-Bertrand and new behind-the-scenes footage from organizing meetings for the Sept. 21st protest, set to be the largest climate march in history.
Disruption’s interviews are stunningly photographed and bring in some new faces to the climate discussion (no Al Gore), along with some old faces like Leslie Cagan, the organizer of the Nuclear Freeze Protest, which brought one million people to Central Park. Those are the sort of numbers that 350.org wants to bring to New York City this Sunday for the People’s Climate March. Protests are also being organized around the world in solidarity.
Bonus: You can watch Disruption for free online right here, right now! Scroll past the video for an interview with co-director Jared P. Scott.
