THE AGE OF STUPID is the new documentary-drama-animation hybrid from Director Franny Armstrong (McLibel, Drowned Out) and Oscar-winning Producer John Battsek (One … A green carpet cinema tent in downtown New York, powered by locally sourced biodiesel, was linked by satellite to 442 cinemas across the USA and to more than 200 cinemas in more than 30 other countries, as well as another 33 countries which hosted independent screenings with no satellite link. [9] The film's star, Pete Postlethwaite, threatened to return his OBE if the UK government gave the go-ahead to the controversial Kingsnorth coal-fired power station in Kent. As always when I am going to watch a resource depletion/catastrophic/post-apocalyptic documentary I was in a very high mood. [citation needed], In Germany, the film was premiered in Berlin and Hamburg on 1 June 2010, followed by a limited cinema release in 12 cities: Berlin, Bonn, Bremen, Frankfurt, Freiberg, Göttingen, Gütersloh, Hamburg, Hannover, München, Köln, Nürnberg, and Potsdam. The 27 Club includes popular musicians, artists, actors, and athletes who have died at age 27, often as a result of drug and alcohol abuse or violent means such as homicide, suicide, or transportation-related accidents. The deaths of several 27-year-old popular musicians between 1969 and 1971 led to the belief that deaths are more common at this age. The production team consisted of nine people, all of whom worked with Armstrong on The Age of Stupid. This ambitious documentary/drama/animation hybrid stars Pete Postlethwaite as an archivist in the devastated world of the future, asking the question: "Why didn't we stop climate change when we still had the chance?" [14], The film continues to be shown in local venues worldwide through Indie Screenings - a web-based form of film distribution, pioneered by Age of Stupid's director Franny Armstrong, which allows anyone to buy a licence to hold a screening of the film and keep the profits for themselves. It explores options and ideas. The Age of Stupid is a 2009 British documentary film directed by Franny Armstrong, with first-time producer Lizzie Gillett. 10 YEARS ON The Age of Stupid was re-released for its 10th Birthday on March 15th 2019. The film is a drama-documentary-animation hybrid which stars Pete Postlethwaite as a man living alone in a devastated world of 2055, watching archival film and asking "Why didn't we stop climate change when we had the chance?". 4.2 out of 5 stars 133 ratings. EL CRAZY CHE is a documentary about the most amazing case of industrial espionage: the unbelievable true life of an Argentine engineer who became a cold war spy. "Stupid" was first conceived by Director Franny Armstrong as a documentary integrating themes of excessive consumption, war and climate change. It names culprits..."[21] The Age of Stupid stars Pete Postlethwaite as a man living alone in the devastated world of 2055, looking at old footage of seven real people from today and asking: why didn’t we stop climate change when we had the chance? [23] The New York Times described the film as a "much sterner and more alarming polemic than An Inconvenient Truth". Every film, every book, every scientific report, all stored on banks of servers. On 22 May 2009, The Age of Stupid team launched their Indie Screenings model, a new form of film distribution which allows anyone, anywhere to buy a licence to hold a screening of the film - with the price set according to the screener's means - and then, crucially, to charge for tickets and keep any profits for themselves. [14], The film had limited theatrical releases via distributors Mongrel Media in Canada and via Arts Alliance[which?] In addition to the framing narrative in 2055, the news clips and the documentary footage of the six personal stories, the film includes animated segments and brief interviews with Mark Lynas and George Monbiot, created for the film. It's the year 2055 and the world has been ravaged by climate change. Filmmaker Davis Guggenheim follows Al Gore on the lecture circuit, as the former presidential candidate campaigns to raise public awareness of the dangers of global warming and calls for immediate action to curb its destructive effects on the environment. The film is set in 2055, in a world ravaged by catastrophic climate change; London is flooded, Sydney is burning, Las Vegas has been swallowed up by desert, the Amazon rainforest has burnt up, snow has vanished from the Alps, and nuclear war has laid waste to India. The Age of Stupid is a 90-minute film about climate change, set in the future. He looks back on footage of real people around the world in the years leading up to 2015 before runaway climate change took place. He looks back on footage of real people around the world in the years leading up to 2015 before runaway climate change took place. [7], During the post show discussion, which was broadcast live across the internet and at screenings,[8] President Mohamed Nasheed received a standing ovation for announcing that the Maldives would be the world's first carbon neutral country. [14], The film was released internationally on 21 September and 22 September 2009 at the "Global Premiere". The Age of Stupid is an ambitious film that arrived with a … The review noted the "gallows humor" throughout the film, although the review was critical of the crude animated sequences. The Times called the film "the most imaginative and dramatic assault on the institutional complacency shrouding the issue", saying, "The power of this shameless campaigning film is that it gives dates and deadlines. [1], In the Huffington Post, Jon Reiss described Armstrong’s approach as trailblazing: "the future of film, film culture and film distribution and marketing". Pete Postlethwaite stars as a man living alone in the devastated future world of 2055, looking at old footage from 2008 and asking: … The Best Performances in Bad Movies — IndieWire Critics Survey, Mad Max's Weekend Movie Guide: 'Gangster Squad' & More, Self - Author, Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet. Add the first question. The Sydney Morning Herald described the film as "a wake-up call with an elegiac tone – not quite hectoring but pressing. Use the HTML below. By a beautiful bit of serendipity, this was also the day of the very first GLOBAL schools strike. Age of Stupid director rescued by 'knight on shining bicycle' Published: 3 Nov 2009 . "The Age of Stupid," a 2009 docudrama set in 2055, asks why didn't we save Earth when we had the chance. There were no wholesalers or resellers. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. The Age of Stupid centres on Pete Postlethwaite, the only actor in the film, who plays the keeper of the global archive, a huge storage facility built 800 km north of Norway in what is now permanently ice-free stormy northern seas. Armstrong has described The Stupid Show as 'a budget version of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart but much sillier and more interactive'. Amid news reports of the gathering effects of climate change and global civilisation teetering towards destruction, he alights on six stories of individuals whose lives in the early years of the 21st century seem to illustrate aspects of the impending catastrophe. Time Out London's film editor, Dave Calhoun, said, "Armstrong's prognosis is apocalyptic, but her journalism is solid, instructive and pleasingly thoughtful," and described the film as "entertaining and provocative". Franny Armstrong conceived the 10:10 campaign to complement the ongoing promotion of her film: while The Age of Stupid is primarily aimed at raising awareness of climate change as a pending global humanitarian crisis, 10:10 is presented as a strategy for people to take positive action in the face of such an urgent and daunting problem. [10] A month later the government announced a change to its policy on coal - no new coal-fired power station will get government consent unless it can capture and bury 25% of the emissions it produces immediately - and 100% of emissions by 2025. Welcome to the global archive, a vast storage structure located 800km north of Norway. The original rough cut did not include the archivist, which was added later to frame the story and better tie together the six parts. 10 of 19 people found this review helpful. Armstrong began developing the idea in 2002 and began shooting in 2004. Special guests at the New York premier included Kofi Annan, Ed Miliband, Mohamed Nasheed, Rajendra Pachauri, Heather Graham, and Gillian Anderson. But the conditions we are experiencing now, were actually cause by our behavior in the period leading up to 2015. These investors all own a percentage of the film and have received a pro-rata share in the profits, alongside the 105 crew members who worked for survival wages. Directed by Franny Armstrong. A man takes over a dead man's task without realizing the horror it entails. Or it’s the Age of Stupid today. There are pickled animals stack up two by two. [25], The producers calculated the carbon footprint of the film's production to be around 95 tonnes of CO2, and its promotion around 57 tonnes.[27]. ], The Stupid Show aimed to make the Copenhagen talks comprehensible to ordinary people using a mix of humour, stunts, video clips, graphic illustrations and interviews with delegates, climate change experts and activists billeted in the Danish capital Copenhagen for the summit. [5] The screening was held in a solar-powered 'cinema tent' and conducted without use of mains [citation needed], To help demystify the geo-political intricacies surrounding climate change, The Age of Stupid team staged a guerrilla production from the Copenhagen United Nations Climate Change Conference (7 to 18 December 2009), called The Stupid Show. These six stories take the form of interweaving documentary segments that report on the lives of real people around the year 2008 and switch the film's narrative form from fiction to fact. But it deserves a hearing. The Earth is devastated. [6] Linked by satellite to 62 cinemas around the UK, the premiere received a Guinness World Record for being the largest film premiere ever, based on number of screens. Recommended. "[3], A 55-minute documentary, The Making of The Age of Stupid, shows how the film was made. In an arid and poor region of Brazil, bikers search for a miracle to make it rain and save the land, risking their lives. Cultural phenomenon. Boris Johnson saves filmmaker Franny Armstrong from attack. I think that this political agenda is quite poisoning to the pro-environment campaign and makes big chunks of the population who don't share those political views uncomfortable with the whole thing.Said this, the film is more or less OK, and it could pass as a primer on the topic, given that you have enough political culture to judge by yourself about that part. Film, Documentaries. These myths prevent us from engaging with climate change. Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. One is that I didn't learn anything new. Air pollution could increase your risk of developing Alzheimer's, Parkinson's or other neurological disorders, study suggests. This, a source told The Guardian, represented "a complete rewrite of UK energy policy". With Pete Postlethwaite, Jehangir Wadia, Alvin DuVernay, Layefa Malini. We tell ourselves a story of our lives in which we almost always appear as the heroes. L ooking back from the vantage point of a devastated, CG-crafted future, Franny Armstrong’s cautionary climate-change tale The Age of Stupid outlines the present day ills that, in the film’s hypothetical setting, effectively made the world uninhabitable by 2055. Adventure. While he was working at AMD... See full summary », An Indian family decide to stay at home and drown rather than make way for the Narmada dam Three choices. [14], The Age of Stupid was launched in Australia and New Zealand on 19 August 2009 with simultaneous green carpet premieres in Auckland and Sydney, linked by satellite to 32 cinemas in Australia and 13 in New Zealand. in Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Honduras, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kiribati, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Malaysia, Maldives, Malta, Mauritius, Mexico, Micronesia, Moldova, Mozambique, Nepal, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Palestinian Territories, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, Vanuatu, Venezuela, Vietnam and Zimbabwe. Check out our editors' picks for the movies and shows we're excited about this month, like Mortal Kombat, "Them," and Stowaway. After the cost of writing the software[clarification needed] was paid off, 100% of the proceeds went to pay back the crowdfunding investors. The Indie Screenings model immediately proved extremely popular, with 682 screenings booked in the first four months, generating more than £55,000. This is called crowd funding . The year is 2055. He mentions that most of the budget, £857,000, was gathered "through direct contributions from their fans. [29] The panel discussion, organised by Indie Screenings, was screened at 71 locations. Maybe for a starter in this kind of topics it would serve as an introduction, but for anyone who has seen (or read) a bit on this matter it won't add a thing.The other reason is that it mixes the environmental issues with the typical anti-capitalism and anti-corporation rhetoric. If Al Gore and An Inconvenient Truth didn't lead frightened folks to renounce all greenhouse-gas-emitting pleasures, then The Age of Stupid might do the trick. [24] The Age of Stupid. Popular musicians Moby and Thom Yorke from Radiohead performed live. 4 out of 5 stars. The makers of The Age of Stupid were among the first to use the crowdfunding model and pioneered a new distribution system, Indie Screenings. The launch on 22 May was held at The RSA, following which there was a webcast panel discussion[28] with director Franny Armstrong, journalist George Monbiot, economist Nicholas Stern, and Met Office head of climate impacts Richard Betts. It contains the artwork from every national museum. Cif green It's the climate, stupid. 'The Age Of Stupid is the documentary-drama-animation hybrid from Director Franny Armstrong (McLibel, Drowned Out) and Oscar-winning Producer John Battsek (One Day In September, Live Forever, In the Shadow of the Moon). "[18] The Financial Times critic described the film as intelligent and provoking, giving "The wisdom of hindsight, today". London is underwater, Sydney is on fire and nuclear war has ravaged India. Get a sneak peek of the new version of this page. A future archivist looks at old footage from the year 2008 to … Check out our gallery of the 2021 Oscar nominees in the leading and supporting acting categories, as the characters they so brilliantly played and in real life. ], An offshoot of The Age of Stupid project is 10:10, a UK-wide campaign encouraging everyone in the United Kingdom to reduce their carbon emissions by at least 10% in 12 months. Its a great application of my painterly cinematic look. Crowdfunding the film was done mostly to give it the best chance of reaching a mainstream multiplex audience, as well as to retain complete editorial control. This, a 55-minute documentary, the Yes Men, walked up the carpet. Place at a resettlement site or stay at... 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