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Friday, Dec 12, 2008
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Artists document disasters of climate change

Priscilla Jebaraj

The Age of Stupid attacks consumerism

— Photo: Priscilla Jebaraj

Telling comment: At the entrance to the U.N. Convention centre at Poznan, tree-huggers crafted with twigs greet delegates with a silent message against deforestation.

POZNAN (POLAND): “Why didn’t we stop climate change when we had a chance? What state of mind were we in to face extinction and simply shrug it off?” These are the powerful questions posed by Oscar-nominated British actor Pete Postlethwaite, playing the sole survivor of a climate apocalypse in 2055, in what could well be the next blockbuster on climate change after the influential success of An Inconvenient Truth.

Al Gore’s film used the familiar PowerPoint presentation to present reams of convincing statistics, facts and graphs. The Age of Stupid uses the familiar cinematic tool of a post-apocalyptic flashback to present powerful human stories – one of them from India.

Postlethwaite’s character scrolls through video clips detailing the narratives of six individuals from across the world, clubbed with “old” news footage from 2008. Jeh Wadia, head of Indian budget airline GoAir, stars as one of the six, with some of the film’s opening shots sweeping through the Mumbai airport.

Director Franny Armstrong is no stranger to India. In 2002, she made Drowned Out, a documentary about an Indian family who chose to stay at home and be drowned rather than make way for the Narmada Dam.

“I was already familiar with India, so when I heard Jeh’s story, I thought it would be right for the new film,” she said at a private screening of The Age of Stupid on the sidelines of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change here.

The 90-minute documentary goes beyond the scientific data and projections that characterised An Inconvenient Truth. It attacks the broader attitudes of consumerism, exploitation and the tendency of the human race to bury its head in the sand even when faced with such evidence of an impending disaster. It so impressed initial viewers on Monday night that the organisers agreed to include another screening for delegates in the official programme on Wednesday.

The film was financed through a “crowd funding,” says Ms. Armstrong. “The film was produced independently through selling shares to 228 people, each of whom contributed between 500 and 3500 pounds. They will all get a share in any profits,” she says optimistically, aiming for a viewership of 250 million worldwide.

An innovative distribution strategy includes not just theatre screenings but also licensing for private screenings through online DVD purchases. The film should be available for Indian viewers from March 2009.

Ms. Armstrong’s is only one of the initiatives of artist activists here. From children’s paintings to folk art, there is a wide range of presentations to convince delegates to look beyond statistics to the human tragedies and the human solutions.

At the entrance to the convention centre, tree-huggers crafted with twigs greet delegates with a silent message condemning deforestation. Here too there is an Indian connection, with the figures meant to represent the rural women of Uttarakhand who started the Chipko movement in the 1970s.

“We humans are still very much a part of our natural surroundings,” said an activist of Polish environmentalist group Klub Gaja, which made the twig sculptures. “We need to learn we’re all in this together.”

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