How to Change the World

[projekktor id=’20299′]

How to Change the World is a documentary directed by Jerry Rothwell (Deep Water). It premiered this year at Sundance where it won the World Doc Special Jury Award: Editing. It was also selected as a Top Ten Audience Favourite at Hot Docs this year.

In 1971, a group of friends sail into a nuclear test zone and their protest captures the world’s imagination, giving birth to Greenpeace and defining the modern green movement. Media savvy from the beginning, these pioneers captured their seat-of- their pants activist adventures on 16mm film. From this vivid archive and sly narration by Robert Hunter, an early guiding force of the organization, Jerry Rothwell has created a thrilling, sometimes terrifying film. When youthful energy comes up against the complexities of a growing organization, and idealism meets compromise, the group find their battle to save the planet forces them also to fight each other. This insightful film is also a vibrant, moving reflection on the struggle to balance the political and the personal.

“What drew me to the story of the Greenpeace founders,” explains Rothwell, “is that it is the story of all nascent groups. The men and women who came together in those early years were an eclectic gang whose different skills contributed to a group that combined scientific rigour and engineering savvy with beliefs in the I-ching and Native American prophecies. Some were in it for the politics, some for the science, some just for the adventure.”

How to Change the World is rated PG.