The Age Of Stupid
WORDS: Tom Williams (Sprout Editorial Group)
The Age Of Stupid (12A, 93mins) is a film about climate change, oil, war, politics, consumerism and human stupidity, aimed at creating 250,000,000 climate change activists by the end of it.
Oscar-nominated Pete Postlethwaite (In The Name Of The Father, Brassed Off) stars as a man living alone in the future, 'in the devasted world of 2055, looking back at archive footage from 2007 and asking: "why didn't we stop climate change when we had the chance?"'
It is a combination of drama, documentary, and animation. It is already hyped as the new An Inconvenient Truth, although the facts are more sound. It was filmed in America, the UK, India, Nigeria, Iraq, Jordan, and the Alps. Its director is Franny Armstrong (McLibel, Drowned Out), and it features music from Radiohead, Depeche Mode and Boots Are Made For Walking.
Fundraising started in November 2004, and its budget was £450,000 raised by 'crowd-funding' - selling shares to individuals and groups. Importantly, this means the film is therefore completely independent.
The Guardian has a whole section on the film. If you want to jump straight to their review, please click here. They say the film is "sometimes scrappy", but it is a "rough-and-ready film? refreshing.
"The cinema? [has] space for every sort of smoothly mediocre irrelevancy in fact and fiction. There should be room for an essay on the most screamingly important problem that we all now face".
World Premiere And Release
The event was held in Leicester Square, London on Sunday 15 March. It attracted to the green carpet campaigners and celebrities such as Will Young and Gillian Anderson, who arrived in a van powered by recycled chip fat, Alistair Campbell and Ken Livingstone, and ministers such as Ed Miliband.
It was then released in UK cinemas on Friday. Auditors calculated that the carbon emissions of the premiere were 1% of those at a typical Hollywood premiere.
March - UK cinema release
April - USA release (TBC)
May - UK indie screenings start (TBC)
June - UK DVD released (TBC)
December - Copenhagen UN Climate Summit
The Carbon Footprint Of The Film
The film took four years to produce. The CO2 from the production of this film was 94,270 Kg Co2. This is equivalent to:
- Eight British people for one year, or, two British people for the four years it took to produce!
- Four American people for one year
- 1000 Tanzanians for one year
Shows Remaining
In Cardiff, it's only being shown in Chapter, whereas it's being shown in Vue and the likes all across the UK. So, in Chapter, the shows remaining are:
Monday 23/3/09 6pm
Tuesday 24/3/09 6pm
Wednesday 25/3/09 6pm
Thursday 26/3/09 6pm
Saturday 28/3/09 12pm
TheSprout's Environment Directory is here.