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Film About Climate Activism Seeks Crowd Of Donors

Just Do It | 12.10.2010 16:41 | Climate Chaos | Culture | Ecology | World

Just Do It, a pioneering new film following the life of the UK climate activist movement, is seeking funds to help complete the film, and release it free to the entire world in 2011. They're undertaking a massive push with guarantees of all their funding for the next 20 days being matched!




Just Do It is the upcoming feature documentary from acclaimed filmmaker Emily James. Drawing on over 300 hours of observational material, the film will tell the inside story of the UK’s biggest troublemakers. Starting at the G20 in April 2009 and climaxing in Copenhagen, the film follows an ensemble cast drawn from the ranks of Climate Camp, Plane Stupid, and Climate Rush, as they pick up the mantle of civil disobedience and go after climate change with all they’ve got. Their adventures will entertain, illuminate and inspire, whilst inciting the public to get off their collective arse and change the world.

The Just Do It team plan to release the film under a Creative Commons license – a radical departure making it free to watch, free to share. Rather than charging people to watch their film when it’s finished, they are asking people to donate a tiny contribution now, with the funds going directly to production costs. The idea is to gather a small crowd of supporters who donate and enable the film to be seen by millions of others.

As James says, “we want to focus on creating culture-shift with the film, on changing attitudes, rather than on counting box office receipts.”

With broadcasters obsessed with formats and celebrities, and arts funding being slashed, socially important independent films such as this are finding it increasingly tougher to raise finance. Says the director, “this film may not be ‘commercially viable’, but it’s a film that simply needs to be made”. And others seem to agree. Already, a small crowd of over 100 people have contributed their time to the project, and many more have donated to the production budget.
However, to finish the film, they need to raise some more money, so they are inviting people to join their crowd.

The Challenge - £20K in 20 days: To encourage participation, for 20 days from 12th October Lush, the soap company people, who have been great supporters of the climate movement (including bailing many of them out) will be matching donations to the film online at www.just-do-it.org.uk pound for pound, up to £10,000. You donate half, they donate half.

Check out the trailer here  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iM8iAK58-G4

And if you want to help get this to people's screens around the whole of the world, hit up  http://just-do-it.org.uk/donate/make-a-donation

Just Do It
- e-mail: action@just-do-it.org.uk
- Homepage: http://just-do-it.org.uk

Comments

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I'm not sure

12.10.2010 21:30

I'm not sure what the climate movement needs right now is more unsubstantiated hype, more self-aggrandising, more feeding of egos.

I know everyone involved has good intentions, but maybe it's time for a bit more humbleness, a bit more perspective, a bit more acknowledgement of our relative privilege and our place in the global struggle.

I guess what I'm saying is, if other people want to donate to this then fair enough, but I'm not enthusiastic about it personally.

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l'ideé

13.10.2010 09:44

I think the idea is to provide something that the mainstream media doesn't and uses against climate activists. Namely, an actual look at their motivations, the things they do, and the people. Which intends dispel much of the myths about 'lazy, middle class, violent teenagers'. It's an angle that's not really been visited before. It's less about ego more, defence, I feel.

DL


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Posh?

14.10.2010 18:59

I don't know the people behind the film (which I am a bit sceptical about). Not sure why sceptic thinks they are 'a bunch of toffs'. I followed the link - it was about one person (hardly a bunch), and didn't provide any evidence of Emily being a toff. Was it the films she has made? The subjects she studied? Or the places she studied them? My suspicion is the last one - that she studied at Cambridge. Many people that study at Cambridge are toffs. But many (a minority I suspect) are not. To call someone a toff on this basis is a bigoted as calling someone from an inner city estate (like me) a Chav. It's just a personal attack and only harms activist movements by creating bickering and infighting.

So, Sceptic, please provide evidence of the film being made by a 'bunch of toffs' so that you are actually informing us. Failing that, keep your prejudices about individual people to yourself. Indymedia is not the place to express personal prejudices (refer to Personal attack on the guidelines  https://publish.indymedia.org.uk/en/static/editorial.html)

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