Movie reviews

FESTIWAL PRZEMIANY (PRZEMIANY FESTIVAL) 

5 climate documentaries:

THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE CLIMATE

Recommended again. Seen right after hearing Professor Naomi Oreskes' lecture it felt almost as if a friend were telling me about the hypocrisy of spin doctors. It shocked me anew to hear how the 30 years when the system could have been transformed had been wasted because of denialists planting their seeds of doubt. How do they manage to distort the climate message? They speak fast, giving an overwhelming number of facts and make scientists refute those rubbish claims.

Now, 10 months after the first viewing, I also can't help thinking this is exactly how pandemic denialists and anti-vaxxers spin their nonsense.

THIN ICE: THE INSIDE STORY OF CLIMATE SCIENCE

Watchable. Too much hard science and showing the lives of scientists to make the facts you learn somewhere in between alarming. Most strikingly computer climate models underestimate the speed of the global warming. That's one alarming piece of news watered down with all the talk about ice. At least you get a rare chance to see what scientists' work in Antarctica looks like. 

PANDORA'S PROMISE

Recommended. To borrow part of the "Dr. Strangelove" title, this is how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb. Yes, really. Because, apart from filling you in on all aspects of nuclear energetics, the film tells you the US are buying warheads from Russia. And using them for fuel. The documentary provides you with the solution of all nuke problems. Wonderful.

WE ARE AS GODS

Watchable. The documentary on Stewart Brand, hippie-biologist, opens with a beautifully preserved mammoth. In fact, only the Pleistocene Park and the crazy idea of reviving the woolly mammoth so that the animals thump the permafrost into the soil which will cool down the climate by 2 degrees Celsius kept me occasionally interested. Well, also the bit about Ken Kesey, the author of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", who was apparently very charismatic, always gathering a crowd around when he was speaking. He was also a hippie. I got intrigued by Brand's life principle to "try out new things early on when there are no rules against them yet". And the butterfly effect of the disappearance of just one species on the whole ecosystem is food for thought. The rest is a protracted biopic of a hippie. 

NADZIEJA UMIERA OSTATNIA

Recommended. About young Polish climate activists. At first seemingly not much different from amateur Youtube podcasts, it quickly turns into a professional documentary. As you hear more and more absurd or disturbing stories of how the teenage activists were deemed either  immoral or environmental violators - for the use of loudspeakers - or even worse: about double-tongued politicians or the abuse, even sexual, protesters suffered, as denialists tried to intimidate them, it hits you hard. Another top-notch offering by Jonathan L. Ramsey, the documentalist behind "Można panikować" ("It's Okay to Panic"). 

The film's going to be available on the director's channel on Youtube from 23 October.