- Hours: 25 hours / week
- Pay negotiable based on experience and age
- Location: Flexible/ remote, but at least one day a fortnight at our office in Tiverton, Mid Devon  
- Start date: mid September

Requirements
- Driving license and own car 
- An enthusiasm to learn about documentary production and distribution, including the more mundane parts of the job  
- Excellent tech skills with all usual apps 
- Camera / sound / editing / web production experience an advantage 

To apply, please email your CV and cover letter to admin@spannerfilms.net before midnight on Friday August 20th 

25th June 2021: three weeks to go till RIVERCIDE. Oooooh

Here's the website, where you can watch it live on Weds 14th July at 7pm UK-time: rivercide.tv
Or you can watch on Facebook if you prefer: https://www.facebook.com/RivercideTV
Twitter: @rivercide_live
 
But we are still short of the final £16K of the £56K budget we need..... so we've relaunched our crowdfunder here. If you could chuck in some ££££s that would be enormously appreciated: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/frannyarmstrong/rivercide-stretch-campaign

And here's the trailer, which we're very chuffed with. What do you reckon?

Twitter: @rivercide_live
Insta: RivercideLive
Facebook: RivercideTV
Website: spannerfilms.net/rivercide

 When firebrand TV reporter Jonathan Pie gets a gig presenting eco-filmmaker Franny Armstrong’s new documentary about climate change he thinks he’s in for a jolly couple of days by the seaside

Website: pienetzero.com
Twitter: @frannyarmstrong
Insta: franny_armstrong
Facebook: frannyarmstrong
Jonathan Pie: YouTube (56 million views!)  

PIE NET ZERO is a taster of a much bigger idea. An idea so big, in fact, that should we succeed in pulling it off, I plan to spend the rest of my life working on it. Lordy. 

By a beautiful bit of serendipity, March 15th 2019 is also the day of the very first GLOBAL schools strike.

The AGE OF STUPID will be broadcast on BBC4 in the next few weeks (exact date TBC), and is available now on iTunes, Amazon Prime (in English French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and Japanese) and Google Play. 

To celebrate the re-release - and to commiserate the fact that we are still heading for the disaster dejected in the film - Spanner Films has made a new 10 minute short film, WHAT IF? Written and directed by Stupid director Franny Armstrong - and with many of the original film crew returning to work on it - the film stars the late Pete Postlethwaite, Ed Miliband, Jon Snow, Jonathan Pie, Jack Harries, Tamsin Allen, Chris Packham and Caroline Lucas as inhabitants of a planet uncannily like Earth in which the people are doing everything they can to stop climate change. More details here. Who knew our politicians were such good actors?

Also released for the 10th anniversary is a new film, THE RETURN OF THE AGE OF STUPID, made by the Guardian’s video team. Stupid’s director Franny Armstrong revisits the places and people in the film and asks: what’s changed in the last ten years?

New privacy policy here: /privacy_policy

New opt-out page: /opt-out

Franny's acceptance speech below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEA8P69qQis

FRANNY’S ACCEPTANCE SPEECH

It is very easy to stand here and accept this honour. To bask in the occasion, take photos in this silly outfit, drink the free drinks and generally believe all the flattering stuff. 

But the problem is I don’t believe it. 

I’d like to tell you the story of two girls, born a few years apart. They were both intelligent, both popular at school, both wanted to grow up to do meaningful work, to contribute positively to the world, to make their lives count for something bigger than themselves - and they both hoped to have their own families later in life. But that’s where their stories diverge. 

Because one of those girls happened to be born in London in the early 70s. There was peace in Europe. Britain had just held its first public referendum, resulting in a renewed commitment to stay in the EU, then called the EEC. There was hot and cold running water. The girl went to an excellent primary school in walking distance from her centrally-heated house. The school was well-funded by the state, and her inspiring teachers (who were not bogged down in endless paperwork) pushed her to be herself. She was supported by a creative family who encouraged her early adventures in writing plays starring her schoolfriends, She had music lessons and was allowed to practise her drums at home even after the unholy racket caused a cupboard to fall over and smash all her mum’s heirloom plates. She had her own bicycle and an AtoZ of London and could go wherever she wanted, without a brother or uncle accompanying her. 

Her private school education had taught her to craft a convincing sentence and so, as a young adult, to win government grants set up to support social entrepreneurs. Which meant she could work at becoming a filmmaker without taking three zero-hour-contract jobs just to survive. Her working class grandmother left her enough money for a deposit on her own flat in London, just before insanely-escalating prices put home ownership out of reach of most young people.  Her British passport meant she could travel freely and fold the things she learned about the world into her films. Later, she was supported financially by more than 300 people via crowdfunding to make the films she wanted to make, to say the things she wanted to say, and, as new technologies developed, to amplify her message out to a huge international audience. What a privilege. 

Then there’s the other girl, whose name is Kulood. Kulood was also born into a middle class family and also walked to her local primary school. But she lived under a brutal dictatorship in a small city called Kut close to Baghdad. Kulood’s father was a radiologist in the local hospital and, unusually, he didn’t just encourage his sons, but also his daughters, to study hard and go on to get college degrees. Despite going to the local college, she had no freedom: apart from one day trip to Baghdad, she didn’t even leave her home city until she was 23.  Then America and Britain invaded Iraq and Kulood’s city came under attack. Women weren’t allowed outside, so Kulood didn’t see any of the fighting, but she heard everything. Her brother was murdered on the streets, as were hundreds of thousands of other innocent civilians across Iraq.  

When the day-to-day fighting calmed, Kulood set up a small organisation aiming "to teach the women how to defend their rights, to show them that they didn’t always have to obey what men said.” That didn’t go down well. Her office was looted, she was denounced as working for the Americans by name in the local paper, and death threats came thick and fast. She ignored them and carried on her work, but then, when her mentor - a young American female lawyer called Fern Holland - was shot dead in front of her, Kulood fled with her father and sisters to Jordan where they scraped together an existence.  I met her there in 2004 when she worked as a translator on one of my films. She was busy setting up a project supporting refugee children living on the streets, and said "I think their lives will be wasted just like mine. I try not to think that way, but, really, let’s be candid: this is their future. For me, all these years have been wasted. My sisters and I, we have dreams. We are educated, we want to study, to have careers. But in Jordan we cannot legally work, and we cannot leave. Now we’re becoming old, we’re all in our 30s, but still we can’t marry or start families. We are just standing in place. ”   

Earlier this year, she decided to act. She couldn’t make a life in Jordan, she’d been denied asylum in the UK, New Zealand and all the other countries she’d applied to through official channels - and if she went back to Iraq she’d be killed. So she joined the exodus of refugees heading for Europe and found herself in the middle of the night squashed with thirty other refugees into an inflatable dinghy designed to hold eight. As they approached the Greek island of Samos, waves smashed the inflatable dinghy onto rocks, and the boat sank. Wearing heavy walking boots and thick winter clothes, Kulood was pulled underwater. She very nearly drowned. Her primary school hadn’t given her swimming lessons - but she learned on the spot that night - and somehow got herself to shore.  

My question is: what would Kulood have done with her life had she been handed the chances that I’ve been blessed with? My guess is that, in a parallel universe, we will soon be celebrating her becoming the first ever female - and the first ever Iraqi - Secretary-General of the UN. 

I believe that this inequality - all these wasted lives, all these frustrated people unable to build futures for themselves and their families - is  the key driver of the world’s most urgent problems. Climate change, wars, the refugee crisis. Obesity, depression, street violence. Brexit, Trump, Farage, the rise of racist attacks. All these escalating problems come back to the unfairness of our societies, which are set up so that the 1% cream everything off for themselves, leaving everyone else to fight over the scraps. 

Which is why I can’t feel that proud about winning a race where I got to run on immaculately cut grass in highly engineered trainers, whilst others were swimming through treacle without goggles or running across broken glass in bare feet.  

Nobody can choose the situation they are born into, but I believe that those are who lucky enough to hit the jackpot - through no effort or talent of their own -  have a moral  responsibility to work to make things more equal. According to family mythology, my very first word was “share” and I hope it will also be my last. 

So even though I feel very uneasy about all the golden tickets which have propelled me here, I am very happy to accept this honour from the Open University, whose very reason for being is to challenge inequality, by providing world-class education to people who wouldn’t otherwise be able to access it.  In fact, my grandfather, William Armstrong, was involved in the setting up of the OU in the 1960s, and was himself awarded an honorary degree in 1974 - nearly half a century ago. I know he would be very happy that his granddaughter is receiving this honour today, from the University he helped to found - with his son, my father Peter, and two of his great-grandchildren, my Eva and Zac, out there in the audience. 

And finally, I’d like to dedicate this award to my sister, Boo, whose shoes I walk in today - literally. Boo was by far the more original and brilliant of the Armstrong Sisters, but she died of cancer four years ago tomorrow and the world will never know what wonders she would have contributed had she lived. 

So, congratulations to everyone receiving their degrees today, and long may the wonderful work of the Open University continue. Because the world needs you all more than ever. 

Thank you.

OPEN UNIVERSITY’S SPEECH

Franny Armstrong is one of the most innovative and important independent film makers working in Britain today. Her films cover issues of vital public interest, particularly raising awareness about climate change, one of the most significant and urgent challenges of our time. 

Born and raised in London, Franny studied zoology at University College London and was a drummer in indie group The Band of Holy Joy before becoming a documentary maker. Her first full-length films, McLibel, about McDonald’s attempts to sue two activists was named by the British Film Institute as one of ‘Ten documentaries which changed the world.’ Her next project, Drowned Out, which followed a family threatened with displacement as a result of a government dam project in India, was nominated for Best Documentary at the British Independent Film Awards.  Her short film, Baked Alaska, explored the human and environmental consequences of global warming. 

In 2004, she pioneered the use of crowdfunding for a new film about the catastrophic effects of climate change. Backed by £400,000 worth of grassroots donations, this eventually became The Age of Stupid, starring Pete Postlethwaite, an arresting combination of factual documentary and fictional drama, music and animation. Having completed the film, she raised a further £400,000 to distribute it. 

To launch the film, a "green carpet" premier took place in Leicester Square, powered entirely by solar energy and satellite-linked to 62 cinemas, setting a new Guinness World Record.

Six months later, the New York premiere featured Kofi Annan and Gillian Anderson, as well as live music from Moby and Thom Yorke of Radiohead, and live satellite links to Greenpeace teams in the Arctic, up a melting Himalayan glacier and in an Indonesian rainforest. Paid for by crowd-funders, the Global Premiere was satellite-linked to a million viewers watching in 441 cinemas in America, in 259 cinemas in 49 countries, and at community screenings and local television.

On the back of The Age of Stupid, Franny founded 10:10, calling for an immediate cut in carbon emissions. Many businesses heeded the call and set out to reduce their emissions by ten per cent in just a year. Participants included Spurs FC, London Zoo, Microsoft, 75,000 people, 1,500 schools, half of local councils, the entire UK Government, the Prime Minister and - after the campaign spread to 41 countries - the cities of Paris, Oslo, Brighton and Mexico City. 

Franny has also set up Indie Screenings, an online distribution outlet which gives people the rights and access to show independent films without the intervention and cost of middle men. Fees reflect the reach and resources of those screening films, such that screening a film for school children in Sierra Leone costs £1, but the same film shown to hundreds of staff in an American company would cost thousands of pounds. The Guardian calls this “taking social justice into the fast lane” while Jon Reiss, writing for the Huffington Post described it as “the future of film distribution.”

Franny is the founder and owner of Spanner Films and Professor of Film at the University of Wolverhampton. Her work brings together outstanding film-making and artistic integrity with a passionate commitment to social justice, democratic accessibility and environmental awareness. She makes films of extraordinary power and clarity, not only changing minds but transforming behaviour.  In fact, she has become so influential that Time Out wrote a profile asking ‘Can this woman save humanity?’. We are delighted to honour her work and support her ongoing fight. 

By the authority of the Senate, I present to you for the degree of Doctor of the University, Franny Armstrong.

Happy 2016 one and all. I hope you’ve all had a suitably celebratory time of it. We’re chuffed today cos we've just emailed our 270 Age of Stupid crew, cast and funders with details of their slice of the film’s profits from 2015. That’s the 7th of 10 annual share-outs done and dusted. And this year’s total, though small, was double last year’s; the long tail flicks with life yet.  If you haven’t heard from us, but think you should have, please email lizzie@spannerfilms.net.

Without further ado, we’d like to share a heartwarming yuletide story of a dislocated family wandering the desert in search of shelter... 

Back in 2006 we were filming Age of Stupid in Jordan, and you may remember we set up a sponsorship scheme for Iraqi refugee children in the city. 131 kids attended school that year thanks to Spanner’s generous friends & family paying their fees. (If you have a spare ten minutes I strongly recommend reading the kids’ thank you emails - I just started re-reading them looking for a quote and ended up reading the whole lot with tears streaming down my face. eg "It is the best thing to feel that there are other people feel to our suffering and trying to help us even if they live over the seas."). Anyway, the person we set the scheme up with was our local interpreter, Kulood Ali Nasir, who we'd only met a couple of weeks earlier, but who we'd become close to during some hairy moments, not least when we thought that a young man had been killed because of us (see the Making Of film here) and when we spent a tricky night together in a taxi at the Iraq-Jordan border (video here).

http://spannerfilms.net/image/kulood_working_with_age_of_stupid_team 

Since then, we’ve kept in touch with Kulood as she’s kindly picked up and passed on the share of the film's profits which go to our Iraqi child stars, Adnan and Jamila, each year. They're both doing well, by the way: Adnan is now 21, married and expecting his second child (!). He returned to live in Iraq recently, as did Jamila, who is also now married. Here’s some pics.

http://spannerfilms.net/image/adnan_and_jamila_grown_up

Back to Kulood’s story… Her family had ended up in Jordan after being forced to flee Iraq in 2004. Kulood had been working for a women's rights charity in Kut, Iraq, as well as helping to research a controversial newspaper column about women’s issues. She was invited to America to meet George Bush as part of an official delegation in which she represented the young women of Iraq. On her return, she was ambushed in the street outside her workplace and a gunfight took place. Thankfully, no bullets hit Kulood, but her close friend and mentor, Fern Holland - an American lawyer working with the women's groups - was killed. Kulood, her father and two sisters relocated to safety in Amman, but the rest of the family decided to stay in Iraq. One of her two brothers was killed there in 2007.

http://spannerfilms.net/image/kulood_school_story

As the whole world knows only too well, the situation in the Middle East has been getting more and more difficult in the twelve years since Bush and Blair invaded Iraq. Kulood’s family has tried applying for asylum in the USA, Australia, New Zealand and the UK but, despite having a strong case, they’ve always been unsuccessful. The family returned to Iraq a year ago and then finally Kulood and one of her sisters, Teamim, decided to head for Europe. Their Dad was too frail to travel and so the third sister stayed behind with him. They packed a small rucksack each, collected all their cash, and travelled by plane from Iraq to Turkey on December 4th. In Turkey, they paid out most of their money for two tickets on the infamous refugee boats, and put their lives in the hands of the people smugglers. For seven days they waited because the seas were too rough. Finally, at midnight on December 11th, they headed to the beach. Over to Kulood:

"We put the float jacket on, but unfortunately my sister's jacket was not good enough and we could not fix it. They inflated the boat but the waves were so high. Two families decided not to go because one had a baby and the other had a disabled person in a wheelchair. The boat was so small for the number - more than 30 people of different nationalities - we were so squashed we couldn't feel our legs. The engine of the boat stopped working twice in the middle of the sea. We were floating on the water being rocked by the high waves. My sister fell asleep several times and I had to keep her awake each time in case if the boat sank. We stayed on the water for the whole night. At six in the morning we arrived quite near to the shore in Greece which was rocky. When we got there one man jump quickly so he pushed the boat and in return the waves pushed the boat strongly and the boat hit the rocks and the air came out quickly. The persons started jumping and swimming to the shore. My sister was not strong enough to jump and she got scared so she didn’t move. The boat was sinking. At that moment I decided not to get out either, so we would be together in or out of the water. The water was very cold and I couldn't move easily because my boots were heavy because they became full with water. The boat sank. We felt we were about to die. 

I pushed my sister up to breathe and I swimmed holding her head to keep her face up. One Algerian guy helped us. We reached the rocks. I held the rocks after my sister stand on the rocks. She couldn't move her legs because the waves hit us several times against the rocks. She fell on the rocks and got injured on her leg. I was stronger so I kept shouting at her to gather her strength back because we were still in danger. The waves still hit us very strong and in any minute it might take us back to the water. The people left us behind because in their eyes we were slow. We swimmed to the shore. My sister walked slowly with shaking legs. We walked up the mountain. The mountain was high and I carried the two bags because my sister was very tired. Both of us were freezing. Two men came back to us to help us to cross the forest.”

http://spannerfilms.net/image/kulood_boat_trip

They’d found themselves on the Greek island of Samos, where volunteers gave them food and water, and directed them to the ferry to the mainland. In Athens, they were able to stay with Franny’s friend Tim  who cooked them food, washed their clothes and helped buy sim cards and research their onward travel. But they didn’t want to wait and rest - not even till their clothes were dry - because the borders were currently open to Iraqis, and the situation was changing hour-by-hour. So they took trains and buses for nearly a week, through Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia, and then finally arrived in Vienna, where they knew nobody. We put the word out on Facebook (which we’ve come to love during this experience) and they met with a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend, Georg, who bought them lunch and gave them all the money in his bank account. How about that for humanity? Giving all your money to two strangers on the promise of repayment from another stranger on the internet.

Kulood and Teamim had joined up with a younger woman, the cousin of a friend, on the journey. The three women decided they would apply for asylum in Austria, as they’d heard it would give them the best chance of bringing their families over to join them later. (They would have preferred to come to the UK, where Lizzie and I could have helped with accommodation and jobs, but, well, we all know about the Tories’ immigration policies.) Unfortunately, they got some bad advice from a fellow refugee, who said they should travel to that well-known Austrian city of Frankfurt to register for asylum. Lizzie was messaging them as their train crossed from Austria to Germany, urging them to get off and get a train back to Austria. But unfortunately they were arrested at the border and their younger friend was detained, as she's a minor, and has not been heard of since. 

http://spannerfilms.net/image/kulood_refugee_camp

Kulood and Teamim were held overnight in jail and then sent back to Austria, where they ended up on December 23rd in a small town called Klagenfurt. They walked to the refugee camp, but weren't allowed in because it wasn’t accepting newcomers. Hungry, exhausted, ill and now freezing cold - it had started snowing - they stood outside the camp and cried. 

We put an urgent request out on Twitter for anybody in Klagenfurt who could help. The tweet was retweeted and retweeted until someone called Matthias Köchl replied saying he could be there in 15 minutes. It turned out he’s not only the area's Green MP, but also a coordinator of a local refugee support group. He and his wife, Elisabeth, collected the shivering sisters and took them straight to a cafe for hot food and then on to a pharmacy for medicines. Whilst they were thawing, they put the word out for a local family to house them temporarily and, within a couple of hours, they'd had eight (eight!!) offers. They drove them straight to the Edelbrunner family house.

 Kulood wrote to me the next morning, Christmas Eve, ”Today is the first day we feel comfortable and relaxed. The family is very nice. They have given us our own room. They have very lovely dog, I love him.  All the family welcome us in a very nice way.  They spent Christmas with the family, and have been invited to stay as long as they’d like. The mother, Elisabeth Edelbrunner, says: “It is good to help people who are in need, especially who have no place to stay. We welcome to help others. We are Christian and we treat people with love and no difference between religions. This is not the first time we accept people in our house. We accepted families from different religions, like Muslims, and different countries, like Vietnam and Sri Lanka. We should share the peace we have inside and spread it to outside. We wish to have love and peace all over the world."

http://spannerfilms.net/image/kulood_klagenfurt

Kulood and Teamim have now applied for asylum in Austria, their applications have been accepted and they are busy teaching themselves German. If anyone would like to send them a message, I’m more than happy to pass it on. 

And one extra twist to the story: even though the link to Matthias didn’t come directly via Age of Stupid - it turned out that one of his friends had organised a screening of our film back in the day. Small world. 

After that incredible human-to-human international response, we are starting the new year feeling positive. The Paris climate deal was surprisingly good, as this article describes well. I like this bit: "When [the UN climate negotiation process] started governments were all important, whether they moved or not was the whole story. Here governments are only part of the picture. When we went to side events by business or environment groups 15 or 20 years ago it was all about the good ideas they might be able to do if they had the right policies. Now it’s about what they have already done.” Without blowing our joint trumpets too hard, we think Age of Stupid and 10:10 - and everyone who worked on or funded them - can take a small amount of the credit for the Paris step forward. 

Meanwhile, you probably saw in the news in November that the police have apologised and paid substantial damages to the women who had long-term relationships with undercover officers. Our TV drama-to-be on the subject has finally taken a big leap forward: the script I've been writing for the last year has now got the thumbs up from our execs/gurus, Tony Garnett and Simon Beaufoy, and so we’re sending it off to broadcasters in the next couple of weeks. Scary! Oh, and we’ve decided to change the title from Undercovers, which is too generic, to one of the nicknames the undercover police team used to call itself, The Scruffy Squad. Whaddyareckon?

Back to Kulood for the last word: “Happy New Year. Hope this year will be good for us, for you, and for all the world. More love and more peace.” 

Hear hear, 

Franny & Lizzie

@frannyarmstrong
@lizziegillett
@tv_undercovers

Thank you so much for all your responses to Franny's downbeat email last week, perhaps best summarised by “Bill in Bristol”, who said he was "moved, demoralised, inspired and humanised”. 

Speaking of being moved, demoralised, inspired and humanised, I hope everyone was out in person or spirit on the global climate marches yesterday. The Guardian have a fantastic photo gallery of images and stories from all round the world, but our favourite is this image from Paris, where 10,000 pairs of shoes “marched” after the authorities cancelled all public protests.  

Speaking of which, I urge you all to read this article by Naomi Klein  which caused me to completely u-turn my opinion from saying it was “understandable” the authorities cancelled the protest in last week’s mailing list message:  "Some say this is all fair game against the backdrop of terror. But a UN climate summit is not like a meeting of the G8 or the World Trade Organisation, where the powerful meet and the powerless try to crash their party. Parallel “civil society” events are not an addendum to, or distractions from, the main event. They are integral to the process. Which is why the French government should never have been allowed to decide which parts of the summit it would cancel and which it would still hold.

Rather, after the horrific attacks of 13 November, it needed to determine whether it had the will and capacity to host the whole summit – with full participation from civil society, including in the streets. If it could not, it should have delayed and asked another country to step in. Instead the Hollande government has made a series of decisions that reflect a very particular set of values and priorities about who and what will get the full security protection of the state. Yes to world leaders, football matches and Christmas markets; no to climate marches and protests pointing out that the negotiations, with the current level of emission targets, endanger the lives and livelihoods of millions if not billions of people.

It is worth thinking about what the decision to cancel marches and protests means in real, as well as symbolic, terms. Climate change is a moral crisis because every time governments of wealthy nations fail to act, it sends a message that we in the global north are putting our immediate comfort and economic security ahead of the suffering and survival of some of the poorest and most vulnerable people on Earth. The decision to ban the most important spaces where the voices of climate-impacted people would have been heard is a dramatic expression of this profoundly unethical abuse of power: once again, a wealthy western country is putting security for elites ahead of the interests of those fighting for survival. Once again, the message is: our security is non-negotiable, yours is up for grabs."

- - - - - 

Good news: last week the Metropolitan Police apologised to the women who were deceived into having long-term relationships - and even children - with the #spycops. The full apology is well worth reading - or watching -  the police couldn't have grovelled any more if they’d tried - and Helen Steel’s heart-wrenching interview on Radio 4 is a must-listen. It is such an incredible story, someone really should make a TV drama about it…

Below is a joint message from the filmmakers behind, well, all the best eco films of recent years: The Yes Men Are Revolting, This Changes Everything, Merchants of Doubt, How To Change The World, Chasing Ice, Unearthed, Frackman and something called The Age of Stupid.  

Can you organise a screening of one (or all !?!) of these films to raise awareness in your community whilst the leaders are debating all our futures in Paris?

Actually, that’s given us an idea: the first person or group to screen all the films will win either a vegan meal (up to £125 inc alcohol) for four at Time Out’s “most loved restaurant in London” - Kabaret in Wood Green  - or receive a generous package (£125 worth) of deliciousness in the post from us. To enter, just send photos of at least six people watching all the films. The winner can choose either prize, but needs to cover their own travel costs if they choose the meal at Kabaret.

Onwards and upwards,

Franny & Lizzie

@frannyarmstrong
@lizziegillett
facebook.com/lizziegillett
facebook.com/frannyarmstrong
facebook.com/undercovers.tv.uk

- - - - - - - 

Joint Message from Eco Filmmakers

As world leaders and civil society converge on Paris for the UNFCCC COP21, a group of award winning international filmmakers have come together to share urgent, funny, engaging and provocative stories that you could use in your community to kick off conversations about climate and social justice. Our desire to connect, to find ways to work together to reimagine a sustainable future is even more urgent after the tragic attack in Paris. Feel free to pass on this list far and wide. 

For the last 20 years, notorious activists The Yes Men have staged outrageous and hilarious hoaxes to draw international attention to corporate crimes against humanity and the environment. In their third cinematic outing The Yes Men Are Revolting  (after The Yes Men and The Yes Men Fix the World), they are now well into their 40s, and their mid-life crises are threatening to drive them out of activism forever – even as they prepare to take on the biggest challenge they’ve ever faced: climate change. Revealing the real people behind the ruses, at its heart lies a hopeful message about fighting for change. Watch the film now on itunes and Vimeo On Demand

Celebrating solutions and resistance from frontline communities around the world and asking “What if global warming isn’t only a crisis? What if it’s the best chance we’re ever going to get to build a better world?”the release of This Changes Everything was timed to to assist grassroots groups with their organising ahead of - and beyond - the Paris COP21. The documentary from Avi Lewis & Naomi Klein is now available worldwide for theatrical, community and home screenings. If you are in Paris during the COP21 you can join a special presentation about the The Leap Manifesto and screening with the filmmakers on December 2nd in Paris. And we encourage you to read Naomi’s od-ed ‘What’s really at stake now that marches are banned’.

Inspired by the acclaimed book by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway, MERCHANTS OF DOUBT lifts the curtain on a secretive group of highly charismatic, silver- tongued pundits-for-hire who present themselves in the media as scientific authorities – yet have the contrary aim of spreading maximum confusion about well-studied public threats ranging from toxic chemicals to pharmaceuticals to climate change. Watch the film now at Amazon, Google Play, iTunes, Starz, VUDU, or YouTube. 

In 1971, a group of friends sailed into a nuclear test zone and their protest captured the world’s imagination, inspiring the creation of the global organisation that became Greenpeace.   How To Change The World from director Jerry Rothwell is a thrilling and sometimes terrifying look at these pioneering activists and their struggles and dilemmas as an international movement grew around them.  Their experiences serve up some essential lessons for any activist. If you are in Paris during COP21 then join Sea-Shepherd founder Paul Watson and activist Emily Hunter (daughter of Greenpeace’s first president Bob Hunter) at a special screening on the 10th December.  For details of this and how to watch the film or organise a screening go to http://howtochangetheworldmovie.com/. 

Franny Armstrong & Lizzie Gillett’s The Age of Stupid stars Pete Postlethwaite as an old man living alone in the devastated world of 2055, watching “archive" footage from the early 2000s and asking: why didn’t we stop climate change when we had the chance? Stupid was released in cinemas and on TV worldwide in 2009, won lots of awards, got tonnes of press coverage (everything from the front cover of New York Times to a full-on fashion shoot in Vogue) and also inspired the formation of the 10:10 climate campaign in 41 countries. Watch the film on the Spanner Films website or buy a license to hold your own screening from Indie Screenings.

Chasing Ice is the story of one man’s mission to change the tide of history by gathering undeniable evidence of our changing planet. James Balog, an acclaimed environmental  photographer, conceived the boldest expedition of his life: The Extreme Ice Survey. With a band of young adventurers in tow, Balog began deploying revolutionary time-lapse cameras across the brutal Arctic to capture a multi-year record of the world’s changing glaciers. His hauntingly beautiful videos compress years into seconds and capture ancient mountains of ice in motion as they disappear at a breathtaking rate.The film is available to view on Netflix, Amazon, and iTunes. 

From the fracking frontlines there are two brilliant, urgent films to watch:

Unearthed from South Africa Investigates fracking from an international perspective and what this method of gas extraction could mean for the rural Karoo region of South Africa. Unearthed makes an urgent call for active citizenship, community-driven development plans and a responsible, renewable energy future. Visit the film website to find out more about how to screen the movie. 

Frackman shot in Australia, tells the story of accidental activist Dayne Pratzky and his struggle against international gas companies. Australia will soon become the world’s biggest gas exporters, as more than 30,000 wells are sunk in the state of Queensland where Dayne lives with many requiring controversial ‘fracking’. He and his neighbours have unwittingly become the centre of a massive industrial landscape and they have little power to fight the wishes of the $200 billion industry. Dayne embarks on a journey that transforms him from conservative pig-shooter to sophisticated global activist as the Frackman. On digital release in Australia from Dec 9th at Frackmanthemovie. 

Dreaming of a just world.

Best wishes from all the filmmakers, 

This Changes Everything, How To Change The World, The Yes Men, Frackman, Merchants of Doubt, Unearthed, Chasing Ice, and Age of Stupid, Working Films & BRITDOC Foundation

Here they are: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI0JTKYJVzNpWTrwJfnXwog

Please spread the word, subscribe to our spruced-up YouTube channel and forward these links to any of your friends who haven’t seen Age of Stupid, McLibel or Drowned Out (Where have they been all their lives?).

Hello friends, family, colleagues and no doubt a few spies, 

Firstly, the good news: Lizzie welcomed her baby girl, Cleo, to the world in June. So the next generation of Spanner Films now stands at four so-perfectly-spaced-you’d-think-we’d-planned-it offspring: Lizzie’s Leila (5), my Eva (3.5), my Zac (2) and Lizzie’s Cleo (0.5). Three of the four parents concerned are 100% convinced that this is the final line-up.

Eva and Zac in front of my sister, Boo’s, blue plaque in Camden, unveiled on October 10th - and Lizzie with her daughters Leila and newborn Cleo 

In other great news, 350.org have only gone and stopped the Keystone XL pipeline. Here’s the inside story of how this “startlingly successful grassroots activist campaign defied the odds and convinced the Obama administration to change course against building a major piece of fossil fuel infrastructure”. And their campaign to persuade everybody to take their money out of fossil fuels is also going from strength to strength. 

So it’s not all bad. Though it is mainly very bad indeed. 

It’s not the done thing in protest movements to admit to hopelessness, but, even for a natural-born optimist like myself, it’s hard to see many positive chinks of light to head towards at the moment. The Paris climate talks - the next big UN “COP” meeting after 2009’s Copenhagen washout - start in a couple of weeks and it’s just been announced that the main public demonstration has, understandably, been cancelled. This article in the New Internationalist summarises the situation better than I can: ”The COP process over the past 20 years has overseen a worsening of the climate crisis and a rise rather than reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Similarly, the war on terror has led to more terror – in Beirut and Baghdad as well as Paris – and to a refugee crisis that leaves dead bodies washing up on Europe's shores. The same logic underlies both of these failures. A logic of maintaining the status quo, of protecting our economic interests at all costs, of ignoring the historical and current ways in which the West is deeply implicated in the root causes of the problem. In this moment of fear and uncertainty, of multiple crises sweeping the globe, a movement for justice, equality, anti-oppression, for a liveable planet and for a change to the system based on greed and exploitation is ever more needed. Now is not the time to stay silent."

Hear hear.

But I find it disturbing that I seem to be less motivated to fight climate change now that I have my own children. I'd have thought it'd be the opposite: five years ago I wanted this planet to remain habitable for human life in general, now I want it to remain habitable for human life in particular, no? I suspect that if only I could find the time between nappies, scripts and diggers (see below) to read George Marshall’s new book “Don’t Even Think About It - why our brains are wired to ignore climate change”, I’d discover there's a straightforward psychological explanation. Till then, I’ll foist my own unfounded theories on you: the day-to-day minutiae of keeping offspring alive, clean, fed and tickled saps 95% of available energy, and 95% of brain space, whilst simultaneously decreasing that last 5% of brain power (how many more years does “baby brain” last?). Each day I fully intend to join the revolution once the two kids have conked out, but each evening find myself in an incoherent heap in front of the X-Factor come 9pm. Then there’s the extremely slippery over-consumption slope: once you start acquiring loads more stuff, which seems to be inevitable even with the help of the Ultimate Guide To Green Parenting, then the next thing you know you’ve got two cars and your very own landfill site of broken Peppa Pigs.

On top of that is my own guilt about feeling I screwed up the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to turn 10:10 into one of those self-replicating, world-changing ideas on the scale of, say, Fair Trade. Guilt that is so far not motivating me into further climate action. I’m not fishing for reassurance here, honestly, just trying to understand what catalyses action and what doesn’t... really must get round to reading George's book... oh, whilst looking for the link, I found these videos about the book- that’ll be quicker than reading - and this really funny video on the same subject.

After the disappointment of 10:10, my partner, Adam, and I thought we should re-group and (literally) get our own house in order. So we've knocked down our eco-nightmare (asbestos, damp, drafts, oil) and are busy building (well, watching the builders build) a new passivhaus, complete with no central heating (eek! in Devon!), rainwater recycling, solar panels, homegrown timber etc etc. But all the eco features can never be as exciting as the slide built into the stairs or the crawl net instead of banisters… for the kids, I mean, for the kids. 

Here's a picture of the new Spanner Films office, in the basement of our house-to-be. Reckon we’re going to make some world-changing documentaries from that muddy puddle??

Interestingly, not a penny of the money for the build has come from my filmmaking: it’s half new debt and half “winnings” on the fucked-up London property market. Kind-of depressing that I’ve been doing this changing-the-world-through-films stuff for 21 years (21 years!) and have only just about carved out a living wage. And I was dismayed to read the other day that my documentary hero Kim Longinotto, who has just been awarded the Grierson Trustee Award in recognition of her enormous contribution to the genre throughout her 30-year career, has never been able to afford to buy her own home. FFS. If the Jonah Lamu of docs can’t have a decent standard of living, how the hell are all the up-and-coming filmmakers supposed to even survive? Depressing answer: only the richest young people will be able to afford to do this in future, and so only their ideas will spread.

Then again, am I really surprised that the system does not help propagate system-changing ideas? Hey, I know! Let’s crowd-fund independent films! Let’s invent new forms of distribution! Then we can get other ideas out there! Who’s in?!?

SOME THINGS YOU COULD DO IF YOU FELT LIKE IT

->  Help the Calais refugees
Life in the “jungle” refugee camp in Calais gets ever harder now that winter is closing in on the refugees, most of whom are from hot countries. The most urgent needs are: 1) pre-made identical food parcels, 2) volunteers, especially those who can stay for three or more days, 3) blankets, 4) sleeping bags and 5) tents. All the info about how you can help is here. 

-> Join the Global Climate march on November 29th and during COP21
The ever-brilliant 350.org have a great page summarising how to get involved wherever you are in the world here. 

->  Organise a screening of Age of Stupid or other climate films
If you are infuriated by your community's lack of response to climate change, one tactic is to organise a screening of a climate film. That way your friends and family don’t feel under attack from you personally, but you get to raise the issues - and eat cake.  So we’ve cut the license fee for holding a screening of Age of Stupid by 50%.  Anyone anywhere can organise a screening and keep the profits for themselves or for their campaign. The license fee is set by a sliding scale, depending on who/what/where your screening will be. For example, the charge to a local campaign group for a screening in a cafe for between 20 and 50 people is now £48.91. So if you charged £5 for tickets, you'd make £201.09. Info and booking here: http://www.indiescreenings.net

NB Next week we’ll be sending a joint email with other climate filmmakers encouraging screenings of lots of different films in the run up to the Paris Climate Summit. 

-> Get everyone you know to watch Age of Stupid for free on YouTube
Big thanks to everyone who sent very helpful and considered reasons a couple of months back about whether or not we should put our films up on YouTube for free. After a lot of thought, we have decided to do exactly that. So McLibel is here, Drowned Out is here and Age of Stupid is here. Please subscribe to our spruced-up YouTube channel and forward these links to any of your friends who haven’t seen Stupid. (Where have they been all their lives?)

-> Get nostalgic with the Stupid Show
Whilst sorting our YouTube channel, I got hooked on the daily live web show, The Stupid Show, you might remember we produced at the Copenhagen Climate Summit. I’ve compiled a “best of” playlist here, including our rather brilliant (credit to Dan Vockins for thinking of it) rhyming interview series: On My Head with Ed, Toe To Toe With Monbiot, Drinking Wine With Naomi Klein, Wearing Tweed With Mohammed Nasheed etc. The live underwater skype link to a coral reef was rather wonderful too. 

I don’t suppose anyone’s heard of anyone doing a similar live show from the Paris talks?

The Stupid Show: On My Head With Ed

->  Tweet your message into the Mosaic Earth
My Dad and step-mum's new campaign, Mosaic Earth is creating a beautiful image of the globe made up of individual messages “from parents to presidents: each expressing their longing to protect life on Earth, showing us what stirs them so deeply. What is at stake, for each of us and for all of us, as the planet warms and the oceans acidify? Earth-empathy, if you like.” To add your message, tweet with the hashtag #1of7billion

-> Buy good Christmas presents #1: Age of Stupid DVDs
The Spanner Films boxset is still the best eco-Christmas gift out there… and the cash goes to our crowd-funders, and hence to proving that crowd-funding can work as a model, thereby inspiring more funding of good works.

-> Buy good Christmas presents #2: hats and gloves for refugees
Unicef have finally updated the “buy a goat for Christmas” idea, so now people who can’t bear to buy plastic tat for their relatives can instead sponsor “hats and gloves for four Syrian children”.

- - -  

Our getting-political-dramas-onto-TV guru, Tony Garnett, said to Lizzie and me the other day that when times are very bleak, sometimes all you can do is keep ideas alive. Which is pretty much why we're channelling our working lives and creative energies into UNDERCOVERS at the moment. More news on that front soon. 

And finally… if I had to pick which of my friends would be least likely to jack in life as he’s known it (moseying down to the British Library to drink coffee and write a few more pages of another maybe-novel) to move to Greece to spend his nights literally pulling refugees out of the sea with his bare hands, I would pick Tim Tzouliadis. But that’s exactly what he’s done. I’ve copied a few of his eye-opening tweets below and you can follow him on twitter here.

Onwards we go,  

Franny

Here’s a picture of my refugee family taken yesterday. 

I’m on the right. My two children, Eva and Zac are at the front. They and their father, Adam, on the left, would not exist if Britain had not let Adam’s refugee mother, Eva, into the country in 1934, when she was a 3 year old girl fleeing with her family from the Nazis. My Eva is holding a picture of her grandmother Eva (Adam’s mum) and grandfather David (Adam’s dad). 

Holding Zac is Adam’s Aunt Helen, David’s sister, who was evacuated to Canada as a 10-year-old as it was too dangerous for children to stay in some parts of the UK. A Canadian family looked after her for four years until it was safe to come home. Helen holds a picture of her closest friend, Edith, back home in Kirkcaldy, Scotland. When Edith was six, she was one of 10,000 unaccompanied German children who were sent to safety in the UK on the kindertransport trains. The last time she saw her mother was as the train pulled out of Hannover station - she found out years later that her mother had been killed in Auschwitz. 

Without the generosity and compassion of people and governments welcoming innocent victims of war back in the 1930s, it'd be just me in the picture. Everyone else would be dead or never had the chance to exist.

 

Ahem.

- - - - - - - - -

UNDERCOVERS  is a five-season, 25-episode television drama series based on the incredible true story of the police spies who infiltrated British activist groups over the last 50 years... and the women who unwittingly had long-term relationships and even children with the spies.  

As gripping an identity thriller as Homeland... as complex a political drama as The West Wing... as devastating a betrayal as Atonement... UNDERCOVERS contains many of the elements of the very best TV dramas. And then it has one more thing which none of the biggest international shows have had before. Something which makes it genuinely unique and heart-stoppingly dramatic. 

It is all true. 

- - - - - - - - -

So, that's it, we're making a TV drama series. But seeing as how we've only made docs and one drama-doc before, we are going to be employing grown-up drama writers and directors and whathaveyou whenever we get out of our depth.

As I mentioned in my last message a few months ago, our friend Helen Steel from McLibel is one of the women who had a long-term relationship with one of the police spies, and who are now suing the police. (Listen to Helen on Women's Hour here, watch the Dispatches documentary here, join their campaign here, follow them on twitter here). After more than ten years hearing the twists and turns of Helen's horrifying story, it finally struck me that the most powerful thing we could do both to help her and to try to ensure it never happens again is to make a long-running drama series. Because a documentary would be too past tense ("twenty years ago I really loved him") and a 90 minute movie wouldn't give enough screen time for such a multi-layered, cross-generational, multiple-character, many-themed story. 

Five seasons, five world-changing themes

UNDERCOVERS’ narrative is nothing less than the history of the last 50 years of Britain, told from the perspective of activists fighting for social change. The over-arching themes of the five seasons are some of the defining political and social issues of our time: the economy, climate change, food, race relations and war. Viewers will re-live major events - including 9/11, the murder of Stephen Lawrence, 7/7, the arrival of mobile phones and the internet, the McLibel trial, the killing of Ian Tomlinson and the global economic crash - but from the new perspective of the social change campaigners who were warning of the dangers sometimes decades before these tumultuous events. 

After spending the last six months talking to the mainstream TV industry about the police spies, we've come to understand that we'd never get to make the series we want to make if we signed up to be bound by a broadcaster's editorial priorities and constraints. So, hey ho, we've decided to stay true to the Spanner spirit and make and distribute UNDERCOVERS independently. The situation is similar to that in which we were in 18 years ago, when we were trying to get a commission for a documentary about the McLibel trial, but Channel 4 and BBC were wary after their own legal run-ins with McDonaldl's. We took what was, back then, the very radical decision to go ahead and do it on our own with no money, no industry backing and no definite broadcast, in the hope of selling the film to telly (this was pre-internet) afterwards. With hindsight - and 26 million viewers later - that was a mighty right decision.

So all we have to do is do that again. Simple. Except the budgets for drama are MUCH bigger than for documentary. And that's if you're making one hour, when we plan to initially make 4 or 5 hour-long episodes, followed by another 16+ episodes if the first ones are successful... 

Our first Tony 

Square one: gather wisdom from the guru of political TV drama, Mr Tony Garnett -  the producer of Ken Loach's Cathy Come Home and Kes, as well as Up The Junction and numerous other change-the-world classics. Now in his 8th decade, Tony is still lighting fires under television arses "If you want to make dramatic fiction for the screen you must first strangle your creative impulses." After some very tasty ravioli "My condition is that I buy the lunch, as a thank you for the excellent work you have done so far", we were not only 1000 times wiser as to the countless bear traps we were racing towards, but we also had our dream Executive Producer onboard!

Slumdog Simon

Sadly Slumdog Millionaire writer and Age of Stupid crowd-funder Simon Beaufoy is too busy to actually write the thing - what with his play of The Full Monty currently playing in the West End, as well as being commissioned to write both a 10-part series Telemark with Danny Boyle and another series based on the Len Deighton novels Hook Line and Sinker about espionage in the Cold War years - but he is definitely up for helping out in some as-yet-undefined creative role. 

145 million people watch video online in the USA, compared to 290 who watch TV.... And in Britain, 1 in 4 people watch more online than on TV. And that's in 2013 - by the time our series is ready for broadcast, the world will have changed even further. And as we'll own the rights to our series, we'll be able to sell it to Netflix or Channel 4 or Amazon or iTunes or all of the above or whoever we think will reach the most number of viewers.

These new forms of distribution are currently driving TV people wild - see Jeffrey Katzenberg's insane (or is it?) $75million offer for three additional episodes of US hit show Breaking Bad - which is why Lizzie was invited to speak about our UNDERCOVERS plans on a "Film Distribution In the Digital Age" panel with Philip Knatchbull (CEO of the Curzon cinema chain and Artificial Eye distributors), Andy Green (Founder of Distrify), Annette K Olsen (Director of Borgen), Ted Hope ("one of the 25 most powerful people in the independent film world" - Hollywood Reporter) and Alan Parker (legend). The general consensus was that our plans are sound and we might just do it - if we make a brilliant series which people all round the world want to watch.

So there we have it. We will keep you updated with UNDERCOVERS news as it happens. Until then, over and out.

With best wishes

Professor Franny*

* Yes, I seem to have become Professor of Film at Wolves University - but you can call me Prof. 

You've probably heard the horrifying stories in the Guardian this week about the police spies who infiltrated every kind of protest group over the last 50 years. Our great friend Helen Steel - she the star of our McLibel documentary - has very bravely come forward to say publicly what her friends have known for many years: that the boyfriend, John "Barker", who she lived with and passionately loved for two years back in the early 90s, was in fact police spy John Dines, who was cynically using her to get information on the campaigns she and her fellow protestors were involved with. John had been trained to reflect her dreams back at her, making her feel that she'd found her ideal man, so she would fall ever more deeply in love and reveal more and more information he could pass back to his superiors: they even discussed and planned their future, with him pretending to share her dream of living together on a smallholding, raising their children... So when John suddenly disappeared, Helen was understandably beside herself with worry, not knowing whether he was alive or dead - and she then spent the next 18 years searching for him as far afield as New Zealand, when in fact he was working a desk job back at the Met, with his long hair cut off, just a few miles from the home they had shared. (See Helen's interview on Channel 4's Dispatches here.)

If you've seen our McLibel film (if not, watch here), you'll know that Helen and her co-defendant Dave Morris were also spied on by seven McDonald's spies, making her undoubtedly one of the most spied-upon people in history. It is also now publicly known that police spy Bob Lambert - who fathered and then abandoned a child with his activist girlfriend and who, according to Caroline Lucas MP speaking under parliamentary privilege, was one of three ALF activists responsible for a firebombing campaign of department stores - was also one of the people who wrote the McLibel leaflet over which Helen and Dave were sued! So now McDonald's know who actually wrote the leaflet - it was always known that it wasn't Helen and Dave - I trust they will be seeking damages and a retrial of McLibel with Bob Lambert MBE (oh yeah, he was awarded an MBE for "services to police work") as defendant. Count me in to make a documentary about that trial... Somehow I doubt it, though, as the police and McDonald's were, surprise surprise, working closely together - after McLibel, the police admitted handing Helen and Dave's personal information to McDonald's during the trial, awarded them a cash settlement and agreed  "to remind their officers of their responsibility not to disclose information on the Police National Computer to a third party".

Helen and seven other women who unwittingly had relationships with the spies -  one of whom said "it's like being raped by the state" - have launched a legal action against the police. Their statement is here and they are appealing for donations here. It is hard to think of any campaign more worthy of helping, so please give your credit card an outing on their behalf - and then go to this page where the women list all sorts of other ways you can help.  You can see how angry I am about all this... And therefore may not be surprised to hear that Lizzie and I are hoping to put these stories onto film... tho film not of the documentary persuasion... Watch this space....

Here's a thought: if the suffragettes had been targeted by these kind of police tactics, would their campaign have ultimately succeeded or would women today still not have the vote?  And so what kind of world would we be living in now, if the state had not deliberately damaged these movements for social change over the last half century? Would the economy have collapsed? Would the climate be on the brink of catastrophe?

Please help the women fight back.

Yours in disbelief, Franny

Twitter: @frannyarmstrong

Which means that we are heading for an even worse scenario than the one we depicted in The Age of Stupid: Africa uninhabitable, continental Europe mostly desert, Australia's agricultural system destroyed, hundreds of major cities underwater, hundreds of millions of people dead and many more on the move. Possibly within my lifetime (born 1972, hoping to live to 2062), but almost certainly within my daughter Eva's (born 2012, hoping to live to 2102).

Scientists (proper ones, not oil-industry sponsored) have calculated the safe upper limit of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to be 350 parts per million (hence the campaign, 350.org, see their video explanation here). The last time we were in this safe zone was October 1988, which itself was a long way passed the 280ppm we were at when we started seriously burning fossil fuels at the beginning of industrialisation. To get back to safety at 350ppm, we need nothing less than a "transformation to a low-carbon economy for the entirety of human civilisation", as Mark Lynas says in Age of Stupid, which is "obviously a huge, monumental task, probably the greatest that humanity has ever faced. ". 

So what the hell are we all going to do now?

-> Should we pile on the pressure to the UN, in the hope that politicians defy all expectations and finally make the international agreement needed to bring global emissions down extremely quickly?  
-> Should we start a National Strike, bringing the country to a standstill until the Government goes onto a war footing on climate change?  
-> Should we go into survivalist mode, buying up guns and fortifying our homes? It sounds extreme, but it's not a coincidence that some people working on climate change are buying pieces of land far away from centres of population to move their families
-> Should we party party party now, flying all round the world gorging on fossil fuels, pretending we don't know it's happening?
-> Should we take the moral high ground and continue to cut our own emissions, despite knowing it will make F-all difference? 
-> Should we transfer all our assets into geo-engineering, on the miniscule off-chance that someone will come up with a tech fix in time? 
-> Should we leave our jobs and devote our working lives to building a new political movement to take over when this one inevitably collapses in the face of the catastrophe it did nothing to stop?
-> Should we join our local Transition Towns, working together to build resilience into our communities, despite it being hard to see what difference that could make when continental Europe becomes a desert and 700 million people start heading north?
-> Should we stockpile cyanide? You think I'm exaggerating, but a close friend of mine, who has four children, said she plans to kill herself and them when it comes to it.

I am extremely interested to know what everyone is thinking and whether anyone sees any positive ways forward... Please add a comment below.  

Yours in despair, 
Franny

NB Comments will be moderated before being added below. This debate is also on Facebook here and on Twitter via @frannyarmstrong

Hello. Many apologies, but our new film project has just taken off in a thrilling way, which means that we're unable to run our SWOTS course as planned on 13/14 April. 

If you had already paid for your course, you should already have received an email from us, along with a full reimbursement on your credit card. 

We will reschedule the course for later in the year and hopefully see you then. 

Sorry, 

Franny & Lizzie

Our one-weekend-all-you-need-to-know course, SWOTS, returns on 13/14 April 2013. 

All the info here.  

We are flogging off most of our DVDs at eye-wateringly low prices, with various freebies bunged in for good measure. How's about buying 20 and selling them for a tasty profit? 

Go the SALE page to start shop shop shopping

We're so proud of our SWOTS alumni - more than 150 of them since our first course in 2001 - we've made a boasting page. 

Here they are, the little darlings. 

We're so proud of our SWOTS alumni - more than 150 of them since our first course in 2001 - we've made a boasting page. 

Here they are, the little darlings. 

Here's the link again. 

Here's the blarb: 

On Monday July 25th at the Durban International Film Festival, the five finalists for the first annual PUMA.Creative Impact Award were announced.

This €50,000 award will honour and support the documentary film that has made the most significant impact on society. The top films cover topics ranging from environmental issues to social justice and global conflict, and all five documentaries have enlightened and inspired individuals about global concerns.

The final five films will be judged by an elite jury later in the year that includes: Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan, Morgan Spurlock (Academy Award-nominated Director of Super Size Me), Orlando Bagwell (Director of the JustFilms initiative at the Ford Foundation), Emmanuel Jal (musician and activist), and Thandie Newton (BAFTA award-winning actress).

Morgan Spurlock said of the PUMA.Creative Impact Award, “Finally an award that acknowledges the unique role that documentary plays in society.” Thandie Newton added, “Give me a great documentary over a feature film any day of the week.”

And here's the website: 

Creative Impact Award, 2011

The indie filmmaking team from Spanner Films invite you to come and sit in a comfy warm room in London to absorb all the knowledge we've amassed over sixteen bruising years making and distributing our blockbuster documentaries in some of the world's most difficult places (including Nigeria, Iraq and Bedford). Our pioneering methods have been called "the future of film, film culture and film distribution and marketing" and include inventing the now ubiquitous crowd-funding financing model, making the revolutionary Indie Screenings distribution system and premiering Age of Stupid via a Guinness World Record-beating, solar-powered, satellite-linked cinema tent in London's Leicester Square (making it a bigger premiere than Star Wars, wahey).

The Age of Stupid-spawned 10:10 campaign has joined forces with international campaign group 350.org to co-ordinate 10:10:10, the biggest-ever day of positive action on climate change, on Sunday 10 October, 2010. From sumo wrestlers cycling to training in Japan to 10,000 schools planting trees in Croatia and Russia. From a carbon-cutting telethon on national TV in the Netherlands, to the president of the Maldives installing solar panels on his roof, events are already planned in over 140 countries. Wanna join in?

Everything you need to know here. 

Gotta love the punters' reviews on Amazon (do add your own): "The childrens' parents are dead from the American Military (whoops!) and their unfortunate brother happened to be wearing nylon when the bombs fell (darn!) took that skin right off. The 5-year-old states very seriously, that if he ever sees an American, he will kill them. Almost want to get that bugger Before he reaches military age."

http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/the_age_of_stupid/

All details on the fantastic new German version of this website: http://ageofstupid.tao.de

Full schedule can be found here, or to make it even easier:

21:00 Drowned Out

Shot over three years by Director Franny Armstrong (McLibel), Drowned Out tells the true story of one family's inspired stand against the destruction of their land, homes and culture. The 75 minute no-budget, no-electricity, no-Hindi documentary has been seen by more than 14 million people.

22:50 The Making Of... The Age of Stupid

The Age of Stupid crew filmed the whole adventure from trying to raise the cash in 2004 to making all their friends cry at the first screening in 2008. 

23:50 1% Event

Short film covering the Guiness World Record breaking UK premiere of 'The Age of Stupid'.

00:45 The Global Premiere

The whole story of the global premiere of 'The Age of Stupid' that over 1 million people in 63 countries participated in.

* All programmes are repeated throughout the week so no excuse not to catch them *

More info about the Community Channel can be found at: www.communitychannel.org

They're planning post film events and discussions at cinema screenings around the country, from Bremen to Munich. As ever, the more people go to see it in the opening weekend, the more cinemas will pick up on it in the following weeks. So help us spread the word by telling all your friends/acquaintances/anyone you once met who might be in Germany.

ageofstupid.tao.de/ has all the information in German. And is worth a look at anyway just to see pretty much our whole website impressively replicated in German.

Facebookers can go to: http://de-de.facebook.com/pages/Age-of-Stupid-warum-tun-wir-nichts-deutsche-Gruppe/101632913213067

Lizzie and Franny will be at the Berlin and Hamburg premieres, joined by prominent politicians and environmentalists. The premieres will launch 10:10 Deutschland. So anyone coming out of the cinema asking 'warum tun wir nichts?' - the german tagline - can go right ahead and do something by joining the 10:10 Global campaign to cut carbon emissions by 10%, starting 2010. No need to wait of course, sign up as soon as you can. 10:10 Germany is over at: www.1010global.org/de

BERLIN PREMIERE: Tuesday 1st June, Kino Filmkunst 66. 12 Berlin - Charlottenburg. (Tickets: 030/8821753)

HAMBURG PREMIERE: Wednesday 2nd June, Passage-Kino, Mönckebergst (Tickets: 040/324139)

SCREEENINGS ACROSS THE COUNTRY, FROM BREMEN TO MUNICH: http://ageofstupid.tao.de/deutsche-premiere for the latest details and cinema times.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2010/may/05/general-election-2010-green-party

The Age of Stupid from Age of Stupid on Vimeo.

Go to Ed vs Franny page. 

We reckon that's pretty much the perfect time to get together a few friends and watch it together with popcorn... or organic beers... or just some lively debate. 

Not content with 7 years hard graft bringing Stupid to the world, she's now blazing more trails as Campaign Director for 10:10 Global... Check out the just-launched website at www.1010global.org. 

 Lighter Later

 http://www.goodscreenings.org

Hello Age of Stupid fans,

Piers Guy from the film here.

If consented, Airfield Wind Farm will consist of 3 x 2MW wind turbines, located in Bedfordshire. These three turbines, proposed next to the Santa Pod drag racing strip, will produce around 14,000GWh of clean electricity per year, which is the equivalent to the usage of around 3,000 homes, savings thousands of tonnes of CO2 per year.

In the summer of 2009, Nuon Renewables appealed the planning application on the grounds of non determination. The Public Inquiry has been set for 10am on Tuesday the 12th of January at Bedford Town Hall, St. Paul's Square, Bedford, MK40 1SJ. The inquiry will last until the 15th of January.

We really want the Planning Inspector to see the strength of support for the wind farm. We know CLOWD, the anti group featured in The Age of Stupid, will be there in large numbers trying to monopolise the proceedings, so it is vital that the we have as many supporters present as possible.

A strong turnout would send a very positive message to the Planning Inspector, we also would like as many people as possible to drop in throughout the week so that the inspector is continuously reminded of the support that exists for this project and also to boost the morale of the wind farm team at the enquiry.

At all times please wear bright blue (hats, scarves, t-shirts, jumpers etc.) if possible to show your support for the wind farm  We will also have blue rosettes for people to wear.

Feel free to make banners, and make yourselves heard.

Hope to see you in Bedford!

Cheers,
Piers Guy

Any queries please contact:
Will Wason, Project Manager
Email: will.wason@nuonrenewables.com
Tel: +44 (0)1736 330171
Web: www.nuonrenewables.com

 Radiohead's Thom Yorke with The Stupid Show team shortly after he'd signed up to 10:10

The Age of Stupid, the film, is all over, therefore we can retire?

-> Team Stupid has done a fantastic job over the last few months putting everything in place so that the film will continue to be watched all around the world for years to come. Distribution deals are signed & sealed from Australia to Armenia. The DVDs are flying off the shelves. The Stupid shop has moved to its new home in a big warehouse.  Indie Screenings is being handed over to our UK distributors Dogwoof. The downloads are winging their way through cyberspace and the pirates are swopping bittorrents for free on the internet, feeling smug whilst they do it (how come they get the best of all worlds? Couldn't they at least feel bad as they nick our hard work?).  There's plenty more TV screenings coming up, including Discovery in America in March or April. We're thinking that the prize for keenest country goes to the Netherlands, where 200,000 viewers watched it on mainstream TV the other week, 120,000 DVDs have been printed (70,000 given away in Belgium and the rest ordered by shops in Holland) and, according to several Dutch friends telling me independently, "Age of Stupid" has become a must-say phrase in the mainstream media, even when not talking about the film.

-> Cash-wise, the first of ten annual payments to our crowd-funders & crew went out last week. Sorry that we just missed Christmas: the problem was that 100+ of the 400 people wrote in to change their details, so that slowed things down considerably. But you should have got your cash now and if you haven't please contact our accountant Kevin Lyons on theageofstupid@mklp.co.uk. About 40 people said they were delighted and/or surprised with their payment and one said he was totally regretting ever getting involved with the film, so that's not such a bad ratio. Sorry we haven't quite yet made you all millionaires.

-> Team Stupid has now disbanded. Many have packed their laptops and headed upstairs to 10:10 (Dan, Leo, Mal), one has gone to film school (Ben), two back to their old dayjobs (Sylvia, Sara),  two unaccounted for somewhere in Copenhagen (Tom, Luke), one last seen heading off in a campervan surrounded by Danish police (Rop), one to a great job at the Carbon Trust (Andrew), one to musical adventures (Nick) and one to continue internationally coordinating NGOs (Jahlia).

-> Which therefore means that the winner of the lucky draw to captain the good ship Spanner Films solo from now till eternity is.... Rhiannon Roberts. Round of applause please. Yes, the poor gal will be all alone in Stupid Towers from now on - except we're getting kicked out of Stupid Towers so will have to find a desk for her to squat somewhere else. So all Stupid or Spanner Films-related enquiries should now go to the hardy lass on rhiannon@ageofstupid.net. She's only got 400 emails in her inbox at the moment, so sure she'll get back to you real soon.

-> Having said all that, Andy Moore is also popping in from time to time, finishing up the American DVD, sorting out the Stupid Show, archiving all the used teabags and whathaveyou. He's on andy@ageofstupid.net

-> Miss Lizzie doesn't yet know whether she'll do more filmmaking, more campaigning or more politicking but you can rest assured you haven't heard the last from her... As for myself, I guess I fall into the next paragraph...

 Rhiannon Roberts realises that where once there were nine she now stands alone

The Age of Stupid, the era, is not all over, therefore we cannot retire?

The deal they were supposed to agree in Copenhagen is meant to replace the Kyoto Treaty, which ends at the end of 2012. They didn't manage in Copenhagen (the UN meeting called COP15), but all is not lost, as there is another shinding happening in Mexico next December, called, you guessed it, COP16. So if the deal can be done then, it can still come in in 2013, as Kyoto finishes, and that would be pretty much the same difference. We just lost a year of preparation time, which isn't the end of the world.

So what can we, the humble citizens, do to help ensure that the deal gets done in Mexico?

Stupid is dead! Long live 10:10!

As The Guardian's New Year's Day 10:10 special edition headlined, "The politicians failed at Copenhagen. Now it's over to you."

When the politicians meet again next in Mexico in December, they need to be confronted by the news that the people - and businesses and schools and churches and table tennis clubs - have gone ahead on their own and started cutting emissions. Not in a changing-a-few-lightbulbs way, or in setting more long-distance targets, but in terms of actually knocking a few percent off the total emissions of   whole countries in less than a year. Quite a task. To quote myself quoted in the Guardian (much easier than re-writing): "I think Copenhagen marks the end of traditional campaigning on climate change. Enough banners, enough websites, enough shouting in the streets. Now we need to roll up our sleeves and start solving the problem, all together. If we wait until the politicians get their act together, it will be too late."

There is no way that the politicians would be able to ignore the people plonking, say, 2% cuts from, say, UK, Australia, Germany, Iceland, Norway and the Maldives down on the Mexico table, just as they're having their first coffee. Or, to put it more positively, the politicians would realise that the citizens are ready to build the low-carbon future and this will give them the political space they need to make the deal as strong as the science demands.

10:10 is absolutely storming ahead in the UK, so the major mission now is to get at least 7 or 8 other countries up to speed, out of the 33 which have contacted us wanting to set up their own version of 10:10 (rather hilariously, the main national broadcaster in the Netherlands launched their very own 10:10  last week. Not sure how we feel about this, but we have anyway now bought in super-star coordinator Susan Alzner  - she of the UN climate week triumph (and Stupid Show laugh-o-meter, fact fans) - who will be presenting her world domination plans at the first 10:10 Board Meeting, er, tomorrow and then starting to implement the plan on Friday).

Here's how you can get involved:

-> If you haven't yet committed to cut your 10% this year, sign up now at http://www.1010uk.org. If you're not in the UK, sign up at http://www.1010global.org. You've already missed the first 13 days of 2010, so have a little bit of catching up to do. Then persuade your kids' school, your workplace, your girlfriend's college and your grandfather's knitting circle to sign up too. You'll be joining: 53,874 people, 2,041 businesses, 1,051 Schools, Unis and Colleges and 1,424 other organisations. Big name sign-up of last week: Sony. Plus 116 local councils who between them cover a third of the UK population, which means that 20.45 million people will be getting their services (housing, waste, street lighting etc etc) with 10% less emissions than they did this year. Bloody amazing.

-> If you're not on the 10:10 mailing list (regardless of whether you've signed up to cut your emissions), join by sending an email to addtolist@1010uk.org. All the 10:10 news goes out on there, I just send a few titbits occasionally.

-> Join 10:10's Facebook page and follow us on Twitter (#1010)

-> Give 10:10 some of your cash by donating here or by entering the competition to win a genuine Picasso artwork, as the main thing slowing the campaign down is having to waste loads of effort on fundraising. And how much would you impress your new girl/boyfriend by casually giving them a Picasso for their next birthday?

-> Any questions or thoughts about 10:10, please write to hello@1010uk.org

So that's where we're at

I wanted to end this message with the rather delightful news that Channel 4 picked McLibel as the 14th best film of the last decade. But their website seems to have deleted all mention of it... there was honestly a big feature all about the best films and we even made it into the opening paragraph, which has somehow survived the cull:  "As this most clunkily-named decade, the Noughties, goes gently into that good night, we've seen fit to round-up our pick of the best films from the cinematic era that gave us Steve Coogan Hollywood movie star, saw a postman taking on McDonald's and winning in McLibel, while a splatstick horror director from New Zealand by the name of Peter Jackson changed the face of cinema with a story about some plucky midgets."

So that's it then: we made a film, which was called The Age of Stupid, and then we distributed it as best we could and then we turned our attentions to 10:10 in a bid to help usher in, er, The Age of Sense? The Age of Reason? The Age of Clever?

Hope all's well with you,
Franny

 Last two coats in the COP15 cloakroom at 8pm on the final Sunday... Nobody can say we didn't try...



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Public Inquiry for Airfield Wind Farm, as featured in 'The Age of Stupid', 12-> 15th January 2010
-> Please come to Bedford to show your support

Hello Age of Stupid fans,

Piers Guy from the film here.

If consented, Airfield Wind Farm will consist of 3 x 2MW wind turbines, located in Bedfordshire. These three turbines, proposed next to the Santa Pod drag racing strip, will produce around 14,000GWh of clean electricity per year, which is the equivalent to the usage of around 3,000 homes, savings thousands of tonnes of CO2 per year.

In the summer of 2009, Nuon Renewables appealed the planning application on the grounds of non determination. The Public Inquiry has been set for 10am on Tuesday the 12th of January at Bedford Town Hall, St. Paul's Square, Bedford, MK40 1SJ. The inquiry will last until the 15th of January.

We really want the Planning Inspector to see the strength of support for the wind farm. We know CLOWD, the anti group featured in The Age of Stupid, will be there in large numbers trying to monopolise the proceedings, so it is vital that the we have as many supporters present as possible.

A strong turnout would send a very positive message to the Planning Inspector, we also would like as many people as possible to drop in throughout the week so that the inspector is continuously reminded of the support that exists for this project and also to boost the morale of the wind farm team at the enquiry.

At all times please wear bright blue (hats, scarves, t-shirts, jumpers etc.) if possible to show your support for the wind farm  We will also have blue rosettes for people to wear.

Feel free to make banners, and make yourselves heard.

Hope to see you in Bedford!

Cheers,
Piers Guy

Any queries please contact:
Will Wason, Project Manager
Email: will.wason@nuonrenewables.com
Tel: +44 (0)1736 330171
Web: www.nuonrenewables.com

... but only after all the 12,000 other delegates, NGOs and media bods had already done so. Nobody can say we didn't try. 

 http://www.stupidshow.tv

Watch live or later:
http://www.stupidshow.tv

Age of Stupid on the BBC discussion board

See the BBC's website page about the film: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pft7f

 Go to The Stupid Show page. 

http://www.ageofstupid.net/download

You can watch the Stupid Show live on this site at 8pm every night or if you miss the live show you can watch whenever suit, also from this site. 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ageofstupid/sets/72157622945638048/

http://www.ageofstupid.net/screenings_at_cop_15

Rest assured that I've been thoroughly flaggelated for accidentally sending a big photo as an attachment on the last message, so no need to send any more stern emails.

Here's a heart-warmer for you.... in an English city called Stoke on Trent, which was previously famous only for producing Robbie Williams, something rather large and rather wonderful has happened. The police force, fire brigade, NHS primary care trust, university, Chamber of Commerce, half a dozen schools, a couple of churches, several local companies, the radio station, Port Vale Football Club, the Mothers' Union, some allotment associations and the Burslem Bible Centre have all got together and signed up to 10:10. Meaning they are going to cut the whole city's emissions by 10% next year. Wahey, go Stoke. First 10:10 city.

And in other good news, Stupid is officially not going to go bankrupt, thanks to all you extremely kind people who have bought 17 of my 20 shares. The wobbly pile of invoices is disappearing before our very eyes... But that does leave three sad, rejected shares, a snip at 5,000 pounds each... Would be rude to leave those three all alone, don't you reckon? Info here and then contact our moneyman on andrew@ageofstupid.net if you are able to give a share a happy home.

Several people wrote asking about whether they can buy one as a group/syndicate. The answer is yes, but we only make the payment into one back account (cos we are already making 350+ bank transfers and each one costs a fair bit), so you would have to nominate one person to receive your money once a year and then share it out amongst you. Again, andrew@ageofstupid.net can answer any questions.

Meanwhile, our live-from-Copenhagen-web-TV-thing, The Stupid Show, is also looking a lot healthier than this time last week, as it has raised 7, 238 from more than 100 individual donations. There's still plenty of Internet Upgrades and Not Stupid certificates to be sponsored if anyone would like to contribute to our plan to make Copenhagen comprehendable to ordinary mortals. Thank you kindly.

Here's a funny story about someone who went out to buy shoes, ended up watching Stupid and had a bit of an epiphany.

Our Olympic-rowing friend, Roz Savage, is setting off to, er, walk to Copenhagen "carrying inflatable Earth Balls on our backs, and getting people en route to sign them as petitions". Wave them off from Big Ben at 10am tomorrow (Nov 20).

A new campaign, led by Xena Warrior Princess and some stripping super-models (?), called Love Letters to the Future, asks people to contribute messages to the "super hi-tech time capsule including data encoded in a format intended to be readable at least 500 years into the future". Gotta be worth a punt, if only to give your great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren a laugh at your olde Englishe.

And, finally, if anyone's reading this sitting at their office desk fantasising about finding their dream job, McDonald's are looking for an Assistant Manager at their branch in Guantanamo Bay.

See you Franny

Win an Eco Makeover worth 15,000 quid

Spend a Weekend with Team Stupid

Remember the rubbish webcast?

BBC hearts Stupid

1,000th Indie Screening, 15,000th Facebook fan

10:10's Tim is "as big as God"

The first 10:10 reject

Waving not Drowning

Denying death as well as climate change?

Razorlight and Stephen Merchant not eating meat at the Apollo tonight

PopBitch at last

Noodles or rice?

Why I'm selling my shares in my own film (well, some of them)

Please buy a share or a DVD or a tambourine

Here's how you can help:
-> Buy one of my shares - For 5,000 pounds you can join our 350+ crowd-funders and own your very own slice of the Stupid pie. Basically you get paid a percentage of the profits for 10 years, and as the first payment is coming before Xmas, you won't have long to wait before you start seeing a return. All details about how it works here. Everyone who buys a share at this stage will be buying one of mine, so I'll chuck in a signed DVD as a little pressie... If you'd like to talk to someone before handing over your cash, please email our money man Andrew Douglas on andrew@ageofstupid.net with your phone number and he'll give you a call. (Andrew is only available for discussions about shares, he's not much cop with lovelife difficulties.)
-> Sponsor the Stupid Show to the tune of 40,000 and we'll call it "The Stupid Show bought to you by X" on the opening title sequence and all publicity. Or sponsor one of the strands (eg Song of the Day) and you'll see your name on screen.
-> Sponsor something from the Stupid Show wedding list -  Kazoos, internet connections, bicycle hire, felt tip pens, ferries.... there's something for every budget and you can have your name in the credits, if you like.
-> Buy loads of DVDs or T-shirts or water bottles or stickers from our shop. Please buy them from us rather than well-known internet sellers as we get a much bigger chunk of the cash.
-> Give a donation
-> Forward the share info / this whole message to any medium rich friends
-> Forward the Stupid Show wedding list - http://www.ageofstupid.net/money - via email, Facebook, Twitter etc - to anyone you know with a spare ten quid.

My Knight On A Shining Bicycle

When the history of why we failed to act on climate change is written, Boris Johnson beating Ken Livingstone to the job of Mayor of London will get a headline slot. Ken's team had developed a comprehensive city-wide strategy called "The London Plan" which was going to cut London's emissions by a whopping actually-tackling-the-problem 60%. Stuff like the congestion charge, low emissions zone and free buses were the first stages of the mega-plan being rolled out. As we were filming Stupid between 2004 and 2008, climate experts were forever telling me that Ken's plan not only made London the world leader, but was also inspiring other cities to finally start taking climate change seriously.

Then the stupid people of London voted Ken out because Boris has better hair. As soon as he got into office, Boris dumped most of Ken's plans, put London back 20 years and pretty much derailed the whole cities-tackling-climate-change train. It really was that significant, imho, as without one city leading the way, the others started floundering again. And with the vast majority of humans living in cities, we are either going to succeed or fail to solve climate change in our cities.

None of which is to say that I wasn't extremely pleased to meet Boris for the first time as I was walking home last Monday night. The situation went from shocking (as I was ambling along the road, texting Lizzie, and suddenly got pushed against a car) to funny (when I looked up and saw that my attackers were three small hoodie girls straight out of a cheap BBC drama) to pretty damn frightening (when they started waving their long metal bar around) to utterly bizarre (as Boris Johnson cycled up and shouted some Borisness (not "oiks" as the media likes to say, but something along those lines which I unfortunately can't remember)) all in the space of about 40 seconds. Ten minutes later - when he'd returned from chasing after them on his bike - we had a good old chat about Copenhagen (yes he's going), cycle lanes (he thinks they shouldn't be segregated, as "all the road should be for cyclists"), 10:10 (going to be hard to cut 10% of the tubes' emissions as there's no AC) and London's bike hire scheme starting next year (beautiful blue bikes - so much better looking than Paris's). Obviously I signed him up to 10:10 and gave him the tag from round my neck as a thank you. F: "You can only have it if you're definitely going to cut your emissions 10% next year". B: "I will, I will".  

Having been wandering the streets of London for 30-odd years without ever either getting mugged or bumping into the Mayor, for both to happen at the same time was...

.... the best thing that could've happened for breaking 10:10 out of Guardianland. The 10:10 crew wouldn't countenance my suggestion that we keep the whole thing quiet on account of being utterly sick of my ugly mug in the media, so they put the story out at 4pm the next day and when I popped home at 5.30 there were already notes from journalists stuck through my door. How the F do they get someone's home address so quickly?!? I headed off to the Grierson Awards (where we didn't win, but the Yes Men did, hooray) and came out three hours later to find 41 voicemails, 24 texts and 100+ journo emails - plus messages from everyone I've ever worked with and even family members who'd been called by the Daily Mail. By the time I got home, the papparazzi were camping outside my house (well, they were sitting in their people carriers fiddling with their laptops), which was about 100 times more scary than the hoodie girl gang.

Friends in Dubai, then Beijing, then Sydney, then Auckland texted over the next few days as the story spread round the world. Boris's heroics made it into Time magazine to the main BBC news to satires like this and this to cartoons in tabloids to discussions on the Today prog to 300 comments in the Daily Mail to a discussion on Have I Got News For You. Think this is my favourite, though funny to read that I said "Oh mein Gott, es ist Boris Johnson". Didn't think my German was that good. Oh and does anyone have copies of the cartoons which were printed in various papers? Would love to see them. Or the animation that was apparently on the ITV news?

So anyhow, I can confirm that Boris does indeed have fantastic hair and a great knack with a soundbite - "It's a slight mitigation of my heroism that the assailants turned out to be 12-year-old girls". As to whether I'll be voting for him next time - as all the press keep asking - the answer is: Boris for SuperHero, Ken for Mayor.

Hope you can help with the money thing,
The Damsel and her Comrades In Distress

PS. As Ed Miliband pins his colours to the nuclear masts, Spain gets 53% of its electricity from wind.

* Quite a few people wrote saying that I shouldn't have used the phrase "feral kids". Yeah, I agree, it wasn't really strong enough to describe small children who go around attacking people, was it?

10:10 storms Parliament

Yes Men storm Fox

Stupid storms schools

Stupid storms TV schedules

4227 storms in 170 countries

Stupid storms Turkey and doesn't storm Middle East

Letter from Indonesia: 700 people + the rain tamer

Letter from a viewer in Australia

Here's the blarb:  At 10.10am on November 10th, we'll draw five names at random from the 10:10 database to receive a visit from our crack team of analysts. Each shortlisted home will receive a carbon consultation worth up to £500, including state-of-the-art thermal imaging, an Energy Performance Certificate and expert advice on how to stop their building from wasting energy. In the final round, our panel of judges will choose the most suitable property from the shortlist to undergo a total energy overhaul, comprising a ground-up retrofit of all the latest energy-saving technologies as the winning house is transformed into the 10:10 Home of the Future. Whichever technologies suit the winning house best, the 10:10 upgrade will halve the energy bills, halve the energy use and halve the carbon pollution of a typical family home. What’s more, with up to £10k of solar electric technology fitted thanks to SolarCentury, the 10:10 Home of the Future will even earn money for its owner each year as it generates and pumps clean, carbon-free electricity back to the grid.
If you've already signed up to 10:10 - ie have committed to cut your emissions by 10% next year - then you've already entered the draw. Put your feet up. (Or, better, persuade 10 friends, your workplace and your kids' school to join 10:10 too. "We're all in this together", as High School Musical would say.)
If you haven't yet signed up, there is still time for you to get your hands on Kevin McCloud, I mean the eco-makeover... enter the competition here: http://www.1010uk.org

10:10's favourite cheerleaders have done us double proud this time, with a special 10:10 Guardian supplement to mark 10/10 Day. Best is their selection of ten-tenners snaking round the pages... Accenture, Achordus Inc, Adnams Brewery, Aecom Europe, African Cultural Awareness, Alertme.com, Ali Smith, Alistair Darling, Ambler Primary School, Andrew Motion, Anish Kapoor, Anthony Horowitz, Antony Beevor, Antony Gormley, Architecture Foundation, Arcola Theatre, Arts Council England, Aston University, Atkins Global, Aviva, Ayers Explorer Scout Unit, Aylesbury High School, B&Q.... and on and on...
Then Kevin McCloud (he of Grand Designs / the Great British Refurb / great spontaneous wrap-up speech at 10:10 Tate Modern launch) wrote a really touching article: "10% is the first stage on a journey where we begin to judge our lives less in terms of "standard of living" – which has come to embody the ideas of speed, convenience and the value of material goods like cars and televisions – and more in terms of "quality of life", which might be expressed in terms of happiness, sociability and a sense of well-being. I can't think of a more obvious example than the 10:10 commandment: "Fly less, holiday more.""
And then they asked some Ten Tenners how they plan to cut their emissions next year. A small selection below - get your hankies at the ready - and lots more here.  Meanwhile, Comic Relief (love their red nose-meets-10:10-tags-pic attached) have made a snazzy 10:10 animation and just over 150MPs (from a total of 350, I think) have now signed up. If you haven't bugged your MP yet, please use this easy online form to do so.


Back to Stupid...  Lizzie was on Sky News this morning on a show talking about the failure of British independent film... They only went and used Age of Stupid as the example of the film which has broken the mold and is not a complete flop... Apparently in the same breath as Trainspotting and Four Weddings.... You've gotta laugh....  If only they could see our bank balance, we'd have been moved swiftly over into the reject pile....  Still, all spin is good spin.

See you,
Franny

PS. My dreams of making a feature film - after we've solved climate change, of course - have been blown out of the water by Creation. There's my movie right there. Hats off to Creation writer John Collee, who also made the best joke of the night at the Stupid Aussie premiere (I forget exactly what... something about the people dressed as penguins being climate refugees.... will have to rewatch the tapes some time....)

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Making the cut for 10:10

Thousands of individuals, companies and organisations have already pledged to reduce their carbon emissions by 10% next year. Here's how some of them plan to do it. Read the full article here.

 Manchester city council  

With a staff of 25,000 and 1,000 buildings, the challenge facing Manchester city council is substantial. But the 10:10 campaign is a perfect fit with its preparations for a radical, 10-year climate change action plan for Manchester which it will announce next month. The council will seek to slash its emissions by 2-5% through demolishing, closing or refitting energy-hungry buildings in its vast building portfolio. This, stresses Cowell, will be done in consultation with local people, with the emphasis on reusing buildings if possible. Refitting its town hall complex will help meet its second target of a 2%-3% emissions cut through saving on gas heating and a 2%-4% cut in its electricity bill. The council staff now has 800 volunteer "green champions" encouraging colleagues to cut their energy use in the office. "We want to be the UK's greenest city," says Cowell. "Manchester as a council is really up for this agenda."

Oliver Letwin MP

 As the Conservative party's head of policy and the man responsible for writing the Tory manifesto for the upcoming general election, Letwin potentially holds the key to cutting the the entire UK's carbon emissions. But closer to home, he has already been making some big strides. It's been a while since the former shadow environment secretary last measured his carbon footprint – but, he says, any old figure would be incorrect anyway. "Since it was last done, I've moved to a hybrid car, replaced all bulbs with low-energy ones, started offsetting all air travel and walking to work."

Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust 

The trust signed up to 10:10 for both moral and pragmatic reasons. "It is important for us to take responsibility for our carbon impact," says sustainability manager Alexandra Hammond. "But this is also going to save us a huge amount of money. It already is. We can put that money back into patient care." The biggest measure the trust has put in place – two new combined heat-and-power units, costing £10m – was in the works before 10:10 got off the ground last month, so the trust has decided to adopt an ambitious target: it wants to hack a fifth off its carbon emissions in 2010. The new CHP units will cut 11,300 tonnes of CO2 – equivalent to around a week's power output from the city of Newcastle. They will save more than £1.5m in energy costs each year. Hammond has also recruited 112 "energy representatives" among the trust's nearly 10,000 staff to help reduce energy wastage in their part of the organisation – for example, by fixing drafty windows, turning off computers at night and fixing dripping taps.

Rockingham race track

(Yup, a car racing track) "People must think we are barking mad to try and do it," says Cat Lund, head of operations at Rockingham, an FIA international-standard race circuit in Northamptonshire. Rockingham is a carbon reduction nightmare: it hosts British touring car, F3 and club racing, as well as track days for petrolheads to roar around on high-performance bikes and cars. But Lund is deadly serious about its 10:10 commitment. Shocked to discover the business alone – excluding the racing – produces 868 tonnes of carbon emissions each year, she and her staff of 20 set about reducing them. Last year Rockingham's office went carbon-neutral, saving 123 tonnes of CO2. They mothballed little-used offices, turned off lights, started a full recycling programme and curbed the use of office printers. "The next 10% for us is going to be tricky," Lund admits. "We're talking to Honda about putting solar panels on our grandstand, and we want to get wind power up here. But the elephant in the room for us is the cars."

Microsoft UK 

"We see ourselves as having a role to play in changing the world. And you don't get a much bigger issue than saving the planet." That's how Darren Strange, head of environmental sustainability at Microsoft UK, sums up the company's decision to sign up to 10:10. It already has a target to reduce its emissions by 30% by 2012 compared with 2008, but now reckons it will have cut 15% by June next year. By the same point, it plans to have reduced company travel by 10%. The big-ticket items on Microsoft's carbon bill, as well as travel, are the energy used by its buildings and servers. It is redesigning new buildings so they use recycled water, more natural light and more efficient air conditioning, among other things. The company has also reduced paper use – for example, by only allowing people to print a document if they are standing next to the printer. Microsoft UK's new data centres consume half as much power as they did three years ago. The latest one, in Dublin, uses natural air flow rather than fans to cool it. The company has also cut business travel "massively", says Strange, by using more video-conferencing to conduct meetings, and is mobilising its 2,800 employees to sign up to 10:10 on an individual basis.

Highlights

Outcomes

Over Ambitious?

Press

Videos

Photos

Letter from Denmark

[http://www.flickr.com/photos/ageofstupid/3949478873/in/set-72157622438044124/]

 Belgrade

Blog from The Himalayas

Letter from The Alps

Letter from Hungary

Letter from Russia

Letter from Delhi

Bad news from Honduras

Letter from Slovakia

Letter from Vanuatu

Letter from Australia

Letter from Chile

Letters from Thailand (with elephants)

Letter from Paris

Letter from Tokyo

Letter from Amsterdam

Dear Franny and Lizzie,

What an UN-BE-LIE-VABLE evening.... What a gentle power, convincing conviction and humble dedication was talking to mankind from that simple stage in NY. You both did a wonderful job there. I saw coureageous strong women, I saw a new generation that is going to midwife our species into a new era. Big words, but I was moved to tears really, like many, many in the big cinema hall. The director of X, a well-known airline, who was present too, literally just sms'd to me: "It makes me think: shouldn't we ground all our planes today?"

Bank directors, big pension investors, soapies, famous rock bands, they were all there -and after the film had ended there was a emotional silence in the room. And then applause (quite un-Dutch!). I gave a speech afterwards and there was absolute, absolute silence (not so much because of me I guess, but because people were really moved, their heart was touched -and that is were any change comes from. Both my daughters (17 and 14) and my son (30) and my old mother (83) were in the cinema yesterday. They told me they now even better understand why I am and act like I do.

warm, warm, warm regards!
Maurits Groen

-> Netherlands roundup with great shots of the real green carpet, the electronic goods being handed in as people arrive and the specially chartered tram for the premiere: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gNU4wvIG7E
-> Netherlands very own youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/AgeofStupidNL

 [http://www.flickr.com/photos/ageofstupid/3943826847/]
Dutch Environment Minister, Jacqueline Cramer, signs up to 10:10
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Zimbabwe

Thank Yous

Please sponsor an item or buy a share in the film here. 

When the history of why we failed to act on climate change is written, Boris Johnson beating Ken Livingstone to the job of Mayor of London will get a headline slot. Ken's team had developed a comprehensive city-wide strategy called "The London Plan" which was going to cut London's emissions by a whopping actually-tackling-the-problem 60%. Stuff like the congestion charge, low emissions zone and free buses were the first stages of the mega-plan being rolled out. As we were filming Stupid between 2004 and 2008, climate experts were forever telling me that Ken's plan not only made London the world leader, but was also inspiring other cities to finally start taking climate change seriously.


An oil painting of the incident. No, really. We have no idea who/how/why. 

Then the stupid people of London voted Ken out because Boris has better hair. As soon as he got into office, Boris dumped most of Ken's plans, put London back 20 years and pretty much derailed the whole cities-tackling-climate-change train. It really was that significant, imho, as without one city leading the way, the others started floundering again. And with the vast majority of humans living in cities, we are either going to succeed or fail to solve climate change in our cities. 

None of which is to say that I wasn't extremely pleased to meet Boris for the first time as I was walking home last Monday night. The situation went from shocking (as I was ambling along the road, texting Lizzie, and suddenly got pushed against a car) to funny (when I looked up and saw that my attackers were three small hoodie girls straight out of a cheap BBC drama) to pretty damn frightening (when they started waving their long metal bar around) to utterly bizarre (as Boris Johnson cycled up and shouted some Borisness (not "oiks" as the media likes to say, but something along those lines which I unfortunately can't remember)) all in the space of about 40 seconds. Ten minutes later - when he'd returned from chasing after them on his bike - we had a good old chat about Copenhagen (yes he's going), cycle lanes (he thinks they shouldn't be segregated, as "all the road should be for cyclists"), 10:10 (going to be hard to cut 10% of the tubes' emissions as there's no AC) and London's bike hire scheme starting next year (beautiful blue bikes - so much better looking than Paris's). Obviously I signed him up to 10:10 and gave him the tag from round my neck as a thank you. F: "You can only have it if you're definitely going to cut your emissions 10% next year". B: "I will, I will". 

Skip to two mins in... 

Having been wandering the streets of London for 30-odd years without ever either getting mugged or bumping into the Mayor, for both to happen at the same time was...

.... the best thing that could've happened for breaking 10:10 out of Guardianland. The 10:10 crew wouldn't countenance my suggestion that we keep the whole thing quiet on account of being utterly sick of my ugly mug in the media, so they put the story out at 4pm the next day and when I popped home at 5.30 there were already notes from journalists stuck through my door. How the F do they get someone's home address so quickly?!? I headed off to the Grierson Awards (where we didn't win, but the Yes Men did, hooray) and came out three hours later to find 41 voicemails, 24 texts and 100+ journo emails - plus messages from everyone I've ever worked with and even family members who'd been called by the Daily Mail. By the time I got home, the papparazzi were camping outside my house (well, they were sitting in their people carriers fiddling with their laptops), which was about 100 times more scary than the hoodie girl gang.

Friends in Dubai, then Beijing, then Sydney, then Auckland texted over the next few days as the story spread round the world. Boris's heroics made it into Time magazine to the main TV news on BBC and Sky to pretty funny satires like this and this to cartoons in tabloids to discussions on the Today prog to 300 comments in the Daily Mail to a discussion on Have I Got News For You (anyone got a copy?). Think this is my favourite, though funny to read that I said "Oh mein Gott, es ist Boris Johnson" in this one. Didn't think my German was that good. Oh and does anyone have copies of the cartoons which were printed in various papers? Would love to see them. Or the animation that was apparently on the ITV news? [please email website@ageofstupid.net]

So anyhow, I can confirm that Boris does indeed have fantastic hair and a great knack with a soundbite - "It's a slight mitigation of my heroism that the assailants turned out to be 12-year-old girls". As to whether I'll be voting for him next time - as all the press keep asking - the answer is: Boris for SuperHero, Ken for Mayor. 

They meet again... at the Copenhagen climate summit

* Quite a few people wrote saying that I shouldn't have used the phrase "feral kids". Yeah, I agree, it wasn't really strong enough to describe small children who go around attacking people, was it?

BBC News: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8340865.stm
Daily Mail: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1224990/Knight-shining-bicycle-Boris-Johnson-saves-film-maker-girl-gang-attack.html
The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/nov/03/boris-johnson-attack-camden-london1
Er, Sweden? http://www.bumm.sk/35245/london-polgarmestere-a-mentoangyal.html
Australia: http://www.smh.com.au/world/knight-on-a-shining-bicycle-london-mayor-boris-johnson-rescues-filmmaker-from-gang-20091104-hxdg.html?autostart=1

 Are you a TV buyer? Please contact our International Sales agents, Celluloid Dreams, on: +33 1 49 70 03 70 or info@celluloid-dreams.com

After six months hard labour, our friends over at ActionAid proudly present Stupid or Not? Education for a Smarter Planet. 

Head straight to ActionAid's website to get your copy. Or if you can persuade your school to sign up to 10:10 (ie commit to cut their emissions by 10% next year), then your school can get a free copy here.  Well, the first 1,000 schools can and 700 or something have already gone, so hurry hurry.

Here's the blarb:

A new multimedia resource on climate change for learners aged 12+ supporting geography, science, citizenship and film studies.
•    Exclusive film clips and animations from The Age of Stupid film
•    Documentary on the Making of the Age of Stupid
•    14 story cards with engaging photos
•    Activity booklet with lesson ideas and activities such as role plays and fun activities like a stupidometer

Kids sign up their schools to 10:10 at the launch of the
schools pack at the Guardian offices yesterday

Author Anthony Horowitz - one of 10:10's biggest fans - describes
how the flooding of his house convinced him to start acting
on climate change and how a little rearranging of his promotional
schedule meant he could cut 4 flights

Kids show off their Stupid-inspired artwork.
The quote says "We knew how to profit but not to protect",
Fernand Pareau's final thought in the film

Franny Armstrong and Anthony Horowitz cook up the greatest
ever competition prize to raise cash for 10:10. No, really it is,
wait till you hear... 

Here's the website: http://www.38degrees.org.uk/page/speakout/1010

Buy now from our online shop. 

The live twitter feed is going strong, so keep your tweets coming in and watch it all on our homepage. We're loving the reports coming in from different countries. Keep us in the loop by hashtagging with #ageofstupid.

Despite lack of sleep and an (almost) impossibly fast turn around edit and subtitle job for the global broadcast, we've still found time to send you some of our pictures from the event in New York. There'll be more coming up soon but here's the first batch. A bit of a sneak preview for any of you going to cinemas today where they'll be showing the events...

If you have any photos from a screening you're at, please send your best one or two to photos@ageofstupid.net  Please state cinema and country clearly in the subject line. If you're in time, they might go out on the satellite feed!

None of us quite have the braincells to really tell you how it's all going, so here's some of the updates just in from others.

The Huffington Post today
"One of the most important films of the year (perhaps decade).....  The Age of Stupid represents the future of film, film culture and film distribution and marketing. Filmmakers need to realize that getting your film in front of an audience is at least half of their job as filmmakers. The filmmakers behind The Age of Stupid get it. They get it to the nth degree and it is exciting. They are blazing a trail for filmmakers to not only release their films in their home countries, but around the world. We are on the verge of a new dawn, where fans support the films they want to see and where those films can create a worldwide theatrical release without studio support. You should go see this film not because I feel it is a great film (I haven't seen it yet!) but because you will be participating in the rebirth of film culture."  (Jon Reiss)

First reactions from the American cinema (via twitter, email and facebook)

Tonight I, my husband, and my 10 year old daughter were part of the global screening of The Age of Stupid.  What utter, simple, brilliant work.  To be so suddenly and powerfully presented with the clear responsibility of my generation ...  words cannot possibly express what this does to one's body, mind and spirit.  Truly.  I thank you all for your faith, brilliance, vision, humor, and love.  Let's do this together. - Karen H xoxox

Saw "The Age of Stupid" tonight. Blew my mind, I highly highly highly recommend you see it and then do something about climate change NOW!

Goodness, sadness, anger; such a range of emotion is difficult to evoke, and #AgeofStupid has done it! A movie, yes - a wake up call

Just back from seeing @ageofstupid. I will sell my car in a few weeks.

wow. at the screening of @ageofstupid and delightfully inspired

What a compelling film and interactive global event. We cannot rely on our corporate leaders for change. WE have to be those leaders, movers and shakers. The time is imminent, and I expect to see millions globally hitting the streets to demand change from the Copenhagen summit.

Watched the movie in florida tonight and it was purely an awakening! Thanks to all the people who worked on it! I am going to be spreading the word and be taking some action! We all can do something! We all NEED to do something!
 
What an incredible film!!! Just saw it in Los Angeles. I am so moved. Thank you for making this film! I want everyone to see it and make sure Copenhagen happens!!

 Just got home from the premier of The Age of Stupid, in West Palm Beach, Florida....I have never seen such a moving screening. I believe that there is something we all can do. My friends and I do what we can to help the environment, more can be done ...and we want to get people together to change things in our area. We want to get colleges together to screen this video. We too are college students and we don't want to just leave this issue alone. Thank you
 
I just saw this in Austin! It's a clear and present danger to us all!

Absolutely fantastic loved the funky homespun local rally feel - VERY HUMAN! watched in California

Had an awesome time at todays Green Carpet for Age of Stupid premiere in NYC. great film..must see!
 

Check out this incredible animation showing the scale of what we're attempting tonight, live from New York. If anyone was in any doubt about just how big this Premiere is going to be, this clip gives you an idea of how many people in towns and cities around the world, will be coming together to watch The Age of Stupid in the next 48 hours.

Sponsor something now: http://www.ageofstupid.net/money

All the info & buy tickets here: http://www.ageofstupid.net/global_premiere

During the big glitzy-but-eco premiere event in NYC, we will be beaming footage from the panel discussion live to 440 cinemas across the US, as well as bringing in footage from a bunch of different locations on the climate front line:

1. Greenpeace heroes up in the Himalayan Mountains, where the glaciers that hundreds of millions of people rely on for drinking water are melting away at a frightening pace.
2. Thom Yorke from his London studio - yes, he's playing a remote gig specially for Stupid.
3. More Greenpeace legends in the fast-disappearing jungles of Indonesia. Apparently they film the scientists speaking in the rainforest, a mini satellite transmitter bounces it to the ship which is moored nearby, ship bounces it to a great big satellite somewhere up in the sky, great big satellite bounces it down to our giant truck in Manhattan, then scientist guy speaks to Franny in the tent and the whole lot bounces back up again into the sky to bounce down again to cinemas all over the world. 

These high-tech global adventures may boggle the mind - but wait until you see how many countries we're rolling out to over the 24 hours following the the NYC event...

Argentina

2x cinemas

On 20/09 there will be a two-pager dedicated to the global premiere of AoS in the biggest selling Sunday newspaper in Argentina, and you can see some online coverage we've already had here. TeleféNoticias will broadcast  the green carpet arrivals live, and top singer Elena Roger - currently starring in the musical Piaf - will sing for the crowd. 

Massive thanks to Greenpeace Argentina for all their help.

Belgium 

8x cinemas

Greenpeace Belgium have been hugely supportive, as have sustainability network 3PlusX., who sent a 1000-strong mailout to EU politicians and the sustainability crowd in Brussels, and have raffled four free tickets for the Global Premiere there. Thanks guys.

Brazil

13x cinemas

Brazil got MovieMobz confirmation quite late so they're catching up on promotion as fast as they can - they have a lot of seats to fill!

Bulgaria

1x cinema

One-off screening at Arena West in Sofia.

China

Non-cinema public screening confirmed at Box Café (SPACE FOR IMAGINATION) in Beijing.  Check out the facebook event page.

Chile

1x screening in Santiago.

Costa Rica

1x screening in the British Embassy (invitation only) cinema in San Jose.

Cyprus

1x screening at TEPAK in Limassol (around 150 people).

Czech Republic

Looks like our only cinema has pulled out unfortunately. Possible press screening on 22nd, with cinema release in November

Denmark

1x cinema

Apparently Greenpeace has bought the whole cinema out! There's an entire website dedicated to Stupid along with People's climate action and  
Klimaforum here.

Federated States of Micronesia

1x cinema

But we know nothing else about it!

Finland

5x cinemas

Check out the facebook event here. Thanks Greenpeace Finland!

France

5x cinemas

We actually have a full-on dedicated French Age of Stupid site - check it out here. La Geode in Paris was one of the first Global Premiere cinemas to sell out. The film also got a really good article this week on AFP, here. Fernand the mountain guide from the film will be watching in his local cinema in Chamonix.

A thousand thanks to Oxfam, FoE and Greenpeace France for all their help with the French Premiere.

Germany

17x cinemas

As well as screenings the length and breadth of Germany, we've also had a crazy amount of press over there:

• Bayern-online.de <http://nuernberg.bayern-online.de/magazin/kino/artikelansicht/veranstaltungen-kultur-auffuehrung-kino-the-age-of-the-stupid-nuernberg-2009/> 
  Berlinonline.de <http://www.berlinonline.de/kino-und-film/vorschau/_bin/filmdetail.php?id=179908> 
  Critic.de <http://www.critic.de/filme/detail/film/the-age-of-stupid-1818.html> 
  Commonsblog.de <http://commonsblog.wordpress.com/2009/09/07/the-age-of-stupid/> 
  DigitalVD.de <http://www.digitalvd.de/entertainment/2009/09/10/the-age-of-stupid-das-einmalige-event-zur-gruensten-filmpremiere-der-welt/> 
  Es-presso.de <http://www.es-presso.de/index.php?site=news_details&amp;id=3009&amp;no=0> 
  Filmstarts.de <http://www.filmstarts.de/kritiken/103587-The-Age-Of-Stupid.html> 
  Filmjournalisten.de <http://www.filmjournalisten.de/2009/08/21/the-age-of-stupid/> 
  Filmmag.de <http://www.filmmag.de/index-seitenid-9~filmid-3901-Age-of-Stupid.html?PHPSESSID=e7leevc1ts9a9jmhtqoebge651> 
  Filmreporter.de <http://www.filmreporter.de/kino/33519;The-Age-of-Stupid> 
  Filmz.de <http://www.filmz.de/film_2009/the_age_of_stupid/> 
  Freitag.de <http://www.freitag.de/alltag/0936-10-ten-klimakampagne-franny-armstrong-miliband-graswurzel-age-of-stupid> 
  Gamingmedia.de <http://kino.gamingmedia.de/news,id15072,age_stupid_globales_event_weltklimagipfel_2009.html> 
  Kino.de <http://www.kino.de/kinofilm/age-of-stupid/fotoshow/119110.html> 
  Kino-zeit.de <http://www.kino-zeit.de/filme/the-age-of-stupid> 
  Lohas.de <http://www.lohas.de/index.php?option=com_content&amp;task=view&amp;id=933&amp;Itemid=87> 
  Moviemaze.de <http://www.moviemaze.de/filme/3074/the-age-of-stupid.html> 
  Natur.de <http://www.natur.de/scripts/basics/natur/news/basics.prg?session=d96ec7c24aa951d6_28035&amp;a_no=3240&amp;r_index=2> 
  Outnow.ch <http://outnow.ch/Movies/2009/AgeOfStupid/Bilder/> 
  Prinz.de <http://www.prinz.de/kino/kinoplaner/the-age-of-stupid,673394,1,Article.html> 
  Prosieben.de <http://www.prosieben.de/kino_dvd/kino/galleries/filme/popup_import/t/the_age_of_stupid_10915518/index_1.php> 
  Spielfilm.de <http://www.spielfilm.de/kino/2985413/the-age-of-stupid.html> 
  Subway.de <http://www.subway.de/news/shortnews/?hnr=&amp;tx_mfarticle_pi1%5bshowUid%5d=9219&amp;cHash=9d172f5d2a&amp;hnr=> 
  Tagesblick.de <http://www.tagesblick.de/kino/32/2030/ver%C3%A4ndern_statt_verbl%C3%B6den.html> 
  Yahoo Video <http://de.video.yahoo.com/watch/4679987/12507743> 
  3PLUSX.Net <http://www.3plusx.net/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=78:age-of-stupid&amp;catid=1:neuigkeiten&amp;Itemid=37> 

Respect is due to Greenpeace Germany for everything they've done to get the German Premiere off the ground. Thanks guys.

Greece

1x screening

Public premiere in October in cinemas, but we're screening in an office for Greenpeace Greece - so Greece is still part of the global premiere.

Honduras

2x screenings

Stupid is screening at two fabulous locations in Honduras - Museo Para La Identidad Nacional (The Museum for National Identity) in Tegucigalpa and at the Tranquila Bar in Utila Town. Everyone going to the screening on the tiny island of Utila, off the coast of Honduras, has to pay a small charge to help protect the coral reef. Perfect. Plus the Fundacion Isla de la Bahia Hub going mad on Facebook!

Hong Kong

1x cinema

hk1

At UA Times Square, the writer and author Nuri Vittachi will host the show in a 280 seat theatre. Check out the facebook event here.

Hungary

2x screenings

Both screenings in Hungary are in Budapest. Hungary has an amazing dedicated Stupid website, here.

Iceland

1x cinema

Very cool set of VIP guests lined up for the Icelandic premiere, including:

• British Ambassador to Iceland
• Jóhannes Tómasson, Press Secretary for the Ministry for Transport
• Professor Brynhildur Davidsdottir, Chairman of the Icelandic Scientific Committee for the Reduction of Greenhouse gases
• Hon Svandís Svavarsdóttir, Iceland's Minister for the Environment
  

We're hoping the Environment Minister will say a few words to the audience after the British Ambassador. Lizzie will also be interviewed live on national radio Monday about Stupid...

India

2x cinemas

PVR, India's largest cinema chain is organising a green carpet screening of the film at 7pm indian time, a 422 seater at Saket City Select Mall. Look out for the film in their Friday adverts in HT City and Delhi Times (the 2 English papers with the largest circulations in Delhi) and the 250000 film schedules that they will print. 

Shekhar Kapur, an oscar nominated director, will be present at the screening in the evening after he has spoken from the himalayan glaciers in the morning and beamed into the premiere at New York and a breakfast show in india. 

NDTV will be present in New York to report back from the global event there for the breakfast show.

Indonesia

The premiere timing didn't fit too well with Ramadan, so Stupid is now playing later in Indonesia.

Iran

1x screening

Just a small screening for UNDP staff in their offices.

Israel

1x screening

Stupid is being screened on the roof of a cool social/arts centre in Tel Aviv.

Italy

8x cinemas

Here's a nice Italian blog about Stupid. Rome sold out three screens in just two days (they were latecomers to the party) and are trying to get one more cinema. A thousand thanks to Greenpeace and WWF Italy for all their work on the Italian premiere.

Japan

1x cinema

Screening at Wald 9, Shinjuku, Tokyo. Tickets only going on sale on Sunday, as we just confirmed Japan. You can pre-book tickets here though.
Loads of great coverage/listings online - here's a sample:

http://www.cinematopics.com/cinema/news/output.php?news_seq=9159
http://eiganavi.csgyao.com/news/2009/09/922the-age-of-s.html
http://www.movienet.co.jp/news/2009/09/ageofstupid.html
http://typecast.typepad.jp/t/typecast/140292/0/34622365

Jordan

1x screening

The Jordanian screening is going to be on a friend's roof as the rest of Amman will have shut down. He likened trying to set up a screening next Tuesday to trying to organise something on Christmas Day in the UK. We have our fingers crossed that Jamila & Adnan, the Iraqi kids from the film, will be able to make it to the rooftop screening too...

Kazakhstan

1x cinema

Indie Screening in a Cinema in Almaty.  That's all we know!

Kenya

1x screening

Private screening at the University of Nairobi.

Kiribati

1x screening

There may be only one screening in Kiribati - but it's absolutely humungous. The FREE public screening of the film will be held in the Tarawa Sports Complex, with 5,000 seats will screen the film as part of a big event (6.30 pm to 9.00 pm). There will be a full programme of awareness and climate change entertainment: speeches by youth going to Copenhagen in December, dramas, dancers and songs:  "Turn down the Heat", Dancing in the Waves, Waters Do rise, Who will take my people?...

Eagle-eyed Stupid fans will remember Pelenise Alofa as the "climate witness" who spoke so movingly at the Oz/NZ premiere. Now she is the human dynamo who has organised the biggest Stupid screening anywhere in the world. "We are aiming to have 5,000 people, God willing!  But I am optimistic because we are sending the information out to the churches, schools, government offices and our advertisement will be on air, tv and newspapers starting tomorrow ... Thanks for this tool to use for campaign and also for the opportunity to serve and save my country."

Kosovo

1x cinema

Stupid's Kosovan screening is at the Open Air Cinema in Prizren. Check out the facebook event here.

Kyrgyzstan

1x screening

One screening in Bishkek, that's possibly moving to a bigger venue. Our gang in Kyrgyzstan are working with WWF and Greenpeace Russia.

Latin America (general)

Amazing coverage on a green living website, which we think is something like TreeHugger in Lat Am.

Lebanon

1x screening

Held up by the classification board so decided last week to go for a premiere in October BUT screening at IndyAct offices on the 22^nd of September just so they can take part in the global premiere.

Luxembourg

1x screening

Thanks a million to Greenpeace Luxembourg for helping this one stand up: we're screening at Utopolis. We also have a 15 minute interview in RTL radio (the main radio station) next Monday. There will also be a ticket game in one of the daily (free) newspapers...

Madagascar

1x screening

A last minute Indie Premiere in Antananarivo on the beautiful island of Madagascar has just been arranged. The screening will take place at the Centre Culturel Albert Camus and about 200 people are expected to see the film, including the French Ambassador in Madagascar! Robert Lion, the CEO of Greenpeace France and Agrisud International will also give a presentation before the film. A DVD is being shipped to France right now so that it can be handed over to a cabin crew person of Air Madagascar flying there on Sunday.

Mauritius

Sadly has had to pull out because swine flu regulations mean that the authorities have banned all large public events. No, really. 

Malta

1x screening

Check out some of the online buzz going on around the Maltese premiere:

http://www.foemalta.org/home/
http://www.mymaltainfo.com/Events/The-Age-of-Stupid-22-September-2009.cfm
http://blog.greendrinksmalta.org/2009/09/age-of-stupid-film-premiere-in-malta.html
http://www.maltamediaonline.com/?p=13934
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=131203943455

Malaysia

1x screening

Screening in the Ballroom of the Grand Millenium hotel in Kuala Lumpur. Check out the facebook event here.

Maldives

1x cinema

Stupid is screening at The Olympus Cinema, a 585 seat cinema with an audience of the national government.

The President of the Maldives, Mohammed Nasheed, will be attending the New York premiere in advance of his address to the UN General Assembly for their Climate Week. You might remember the excellent Nasheed from his extraordinary announcement at the UK premiere of Stupid, when he told the world that the Maldives is to become the first carbon-neutral country within the next ten years. If you missed it the first time around, check it out below - it's really very moving.

Mexico

3x cinemas

Mexico got MovieMobz confirmation quite late so they're going great guns on promotion. Ariba!

Mozambique

1x screening

Screening at Teatro Avenida in Maputo. Some great off-line promotion - press release to the media (TV, newspapers) and putting posters around Maputo city.

Nepal

1x screening

The Association of Youth Organisations and Nepalese Tourist Board Nepal are screening for 350 people.

Netherlands

4x cinemas

The extraordinary preparations in the Netherlands deserve a special mention. See their own dedicated offical Not Stupid site here! Check out this update from our friend Maurits:

Amsterdam - SOLD OUT

Rotterdam - SOLD OUT

Nigeria

Our Hub (For my Sake! Nigeria) were on national TV on Sunday and talked about the film. Unfortunatley though we've just had some really sad news. The screening in Nigeria has had to be cancelled, as the Nigerian Film board has refused to allow the film to be shown. The Nigerian government waded in and pulled the plug on our Lagos screening. Funnily enough they didn't like the way they were depicted in the film, destroying villages, siphoning off the oil money and allowing illegal  gas flares. We had hoped to have a great premiere there, with  Layefa, one of the stars of the film  attending.

Norway

5x cinemas

Bigups to Greenpeace Norway for helping make this happen.

Palestinian Territories

We don't have any information but we're still pretty sure there's a screening somehwere! Watch this space...

Papua New Guinea

TV Broadcast

Going out on EMTV to 3 million people! Also on big screens around Papua New Guinea - no info on screen locations yet.

Peru

3x cinemas 

GCAP Peru made this lovely little poster themselves. All three screenings are in Lima.

Philippines

Now a press-only screening. Plans for a public screening later

Portugal

11x cinemas

Loads of screenings in Portugal, including a Green Carpet Premiere with a live debate that will be followed by the film, to an audience of environmental journalists as well as emblematic guests connected to environmental issues. Good support from this big green Portugese website too.

Romania

1x screening

Another last-minute Indie Premiere booking for a cosy venue, only 40 seats. That's all we know!

Russia

1x cinema

The Age of Stupid will launch in Russia on September 22nd 2009, as part of the Global Premiere, and on October 24 as part of the International Climate Action Day, but only the Moscow cinema is confirmed. We hope to announce screenings in St Petersberg soon. Many thanks to Greenpeace Russia for all their work on this.

Serbia

6x cinemas

We are expecting 2000 people in the open air venue, with representatives of the City of Belgrade, Ministries, actresses and other celebs all present. Massive. The launch in Serbia is in Beograd (main event) as well in Subotica, Novi Sad, Pancevo, Nis and Kragujevac.

Stupid will screen as part of a public awareness campaign about the importance of decreasing greenhouse gas emissions, the contribution of Serbian society to climate change issues and increasing engagement with the political campaign of the EU during the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen, December 2009.

The screenings are part of a structured plan and programme to show the movie in as many elementary and high-schools and Universities as possible, and in a huge number of smaller cities and villages during the period September - December 2009.  There will be workshops and round tables organised with the aim of introducing these global challenges and threats to a wider public, as well as to present the goals and actions we should achieve in order to decrease global warming and to really understand the catastrophic consequences and the outcomes coming from the modern way of living, human negative influence and influence of consumer society on the planet Earth, eco-systems and climate.

Support, logistical infrastructure and field and voluntary work of the following organisations are making this campaign and the screenings of The Age of Stupid possible: 

Green Initiative (coalition consisting of more then 10 environmental NGOs), SEE Regional Office of the IUCN and WWF – www.iucn.org, www.panda.org, Bureau for social research, Proconcept, Forum of youth with disabilities, Centre for monitoring and evaluation, as well as the following institutions: City of Beograd, Ministries, The Executive Council of The Autonomous Province of Vojvodina.

Find more on Serbian Stupid online here:

www.zelenainicijativa.com/ageofstupid
http://twitter.com/Era_Glupih
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=133695799260&ref=mf#/pages/The-Age-of-Stupid-Era-Glupih/151481345378?v=wall&viewas=689272137

Sierra Leone

1x screening

Stupid is screening at the One World Centre in Bo which was built with the money raised by a charity in Warwick.

Singapore

1x screening 

Screening in an Indie Movie House - precise location to be confirmed.

Slovakia

1x screening

At the A4 Zero Space in Bratislava.

Spain

8x cinemas

¡La Era De La Estupidez en salas de Cine cerca de ti! !Se parte del Estreno Mundial, 22 Septiembre 2009!  

 The Age of Stupid will launch in Spain on September 22nd 2009 as part of the Global Premiere including a Green Carpet and candle lit event in Madrid. The event is being coordinated by Greenpeace España, who are our main contact and partner organisation in Spain. The campaign of the Age of Stupid film for action to confront climate change is also supported by Coalición Clima, a coalition of 31 civil society organisations who campaign together to combat climate change and promote sustainable human development. In particular the release in Spain is also supported by our fantastic friends, Fundación Tierra, Globalízate, 350.org, Ecología y Desarrollo and Green Cross España. 

Information about the science behind the age of stupid can be found in spanish here.

Here's some of the Spanish online buzz about the film:

http://www.greenpeace.org/espana/
http://ecovivencias.blogspot.com/2009/09/estrenola-era-de-la-estupidez.html
http://digg.com/environment/Estreno_La_Era_de_la_Estupidez_Ecologisa_Vida_Sana_y_Soli
http://www.wirikuta.org/comala/2009/09/la-era-de-la-estupidez/
http://www.planetaverde.tv/index.php/ppal/index/1/569/0/all//1

Sweden

12x cinemas

Stockholm looks like it might just sell out, yay! Big thank you going to Greenpeace Sweden who sent a newsletter out to 30 000 people last Monday.

Swaziland

We're pretty certain that there is a screening in Swaziland, but still don't have any details about where...

Switzerland

3x cinemas

Check out the Facebook event here.

Tanzania

1x screening

On a roof-top in Dar-es-Salaam for around 30 people.

Taiwan

1x screening

Wild at Heart have organised a public screening at the Armed Forces Cultural Center in Taipei. Check out their dedicated site here. Refreshments will be served after the screening and they have asked people to bring their own cups and plates!

Thailand

1x cinema + TV Broadcast

As well as a screening in Bangkok, Stupid is also going out on a TV satellite channel PSI who will screen the film on the 22nd to 4.5 million homes across Thailand! Trailer in Thai here if you don't believe us.

Plenty of advance coverage too:

http://ads.prachatai.com/banner-x.php?lengthvol=1
http://ads.admaxasia.com/servlet/ajrotator/376275/0/vh?ajecscp=1253205876740&z=admaxasia2&dim=280733
http://gotoknow.org/blog/nangdee/298432
http://www.artgazine.com/shoutouts/viewtopic.php?t=9332

Thanks to Greenpeace South-East Asia for all their help sorting out the Thai Premiere.

Turkey

Not taking part in the Global Premiere any longer but will screen Stupid after the 4th of October.

USA

440x cinemas!

The Age of Stupid will launch in America on September 21st 2009 from a solar-powered cinema tent in New York LIVE to over 400 movie theatres across the country. Tickets are on sale NOW. Just follow the links below to your nearest theatre and you'll be taken directly to their online booking site. The timings are:  7:30 PM ET/  6:30 PM CT /  5:30 PM MT /  tape delayed 8PM PT.

This One Night Only live event is your only chance to see The Age of Stupid on the big screen and is timed for the day before the UN's climate meeting on September 22nd, when 80 Heads of State - and therefore the world's media - will gather in New York. 

As an INclusive, rather than EXclusive event, everyone is invited to go to their local theatre to watch the VIPs arrive in Manhattan by boat, bike, rickshaw, chipfat car or skateboard, before braving the paparazzi on the green carpet. Following the first US screening of The Age of Stupid, there will be a further 40 minute live event featuring Kofi Annan, Gillian Anderson, the film's director Franny Armstrong, the star of the film Pete Postlethwaite, and other leading thinkers, celebrities, and political figures from around the world - including Alvin the New Orleans Shell guy from the film. Audiences will also hear from scientists working in the Himalayas and Indonesian rain forest via live satellite link.  In addition, a group of children will speak from the very room in Copenhagen in which all our futures will be decided at the UN climate summit in December. Finally, Radiohead's Thom Yorke will wrap up the evening with a short acoustic performance.

STOP PRESS: New York has just moved Stupid to the biggest screen in Union Square, so there are 100 new tickets up for grabs as of a few hours ago. Boston has 17 left. 

For a taste of what to expect, have a look at the UK launch in March 2009, which produced just 1% of the emissions of a standard Hollywood event and which broke the Guinness World Record for biggest simultaneous premiere.

• Stupid photos: Loving the competition an activist group in LA is running to win tickets to their local screening - best photo of a stupid thing wins.
• SustainUS www.climatecountdown.org  because that's where our more active folks are going right now to run our fall campaign. We will also have tweets and facebook events up later today, as well as more info on the SustainUS site.
• South Florida's Green Living Magazine http://theecozine.com/2009/09/ageofstupid/
• Causecast – doing some amazing things including their facebook promo and twittering www.facebook.com/causecast
• No Burn/GAIA - http://www.no-burn.org/ – got us twice on their homepage, been really helpful and are organising an indie screenings too
• Green Drinks - http://greendrinks.ning.com/events/the-age-of-stupid-live-from
• IBG - http://danielletbd.blogspot.com/2009/09/win-tickets-to-age-of-stupid-la.html http://www.ibginc.org/events
• Mass. Coalition for Healthy Communities - http://masschc.org/ been on their mail lists for the last couple of weeks.  They have a raffle going to win tickets for the screenings.
• Nuclear Information and Resources Services http://www.nirs.org/

Vanuatu

1x screening

Venezuela

1x screening

Private screening in the British Embassy (invitation only) - Being held in the Botanical Gardens in caracas.

Vietnam

We're still not sure if Stupid has made it through classification yet....

Zimbabwe

1x screening

The very last country on our long long list, Stupid is screening in Zimbabwe at Prince Edward School. Charging $3 on entry which will buy a seedling for a tree. Sold out to 250 people!

 http://www.ageofstupid.net/promote

Crazy days here at Stupid Towers and our sister bunker across the pond in NYC as we buckle up and bear down on the moment we've been working towards for the past six years: The Age of Stupid Global Premiere. There's too much to tell for a single news item, so this one focuses on the plans for the Premiere around the globe. See the accompanying article for news of what's happening at the Premiere Hub in New York City or head to the Global Premiere tickets page to buy tickets anywhere in the world. 

During the big glitzy-but-eco premiere event in NYC, we will be beaming footage from the panel discussion live to 440 cinemas across the US, as well as bringing in footage from a bunch of different locations on the climate front line:

1. Greenpeace heroes up in the Himalayan Mountains, where the glaciers that hundreds of millions of people rely on for drinking water are melting away at a frightening pace.
2. Thom Yorke from his London studio - yes, he's playing a remote gig specially for Stupid.
3. More Greenpeace legends in the fast-disappearing jungles of Indonesia. Apparently they film the scientists speaking in the rainforest, a mini satellite transmitter bounces it to the ship which is moored nearby, ship bounces it to a great big satellite somewhere up in the sky, great big satellite bounces it down to our giant truck in Manhattan, then scientist guy speaks to Franny in the tent and the whole lot bounces back up again into the sky to bounce down again to cinemas all over the world. 

These high-tech global adventures may boggle the mind - but wait until you see how many countries we're rolling out to over the 24 hours following the the NYC event...

Argentina - No idea how many or where, but they're doing it

Vanuatu -

Vanuatu's moonlight cinema

Check out the cinema location in Vanuatu - this outdoor screen in Port Vila is easily our most idyllic location yet. Ivan who's setting the screening up there evidently bought this special material for the screen in the States and a local sail-maker converted it into a screen. They have capacity for 160 people with some on seats and others lying on the grass.

New York, New York

Crazy days here at Stupid Towers and our sister bunker across the pond in NYC as we buckle up and bear down on the moment we've been working towards for the past six years: The Age of Stupid Global Premiere. There's too much to tell for a single news item, so this one focuses on the plans for the Premiere Hub in New York - see the accompanying article for news of what's happening around the globe.

Even just homing in on NY, it's still hard to know where to begin explaining the veritable garden of delights that we have in store for you. So let's start with this literal garden of delights:

Edible decor

If you are wondering what you are looking at - it's a garden plot in Brooklyn where the "edible decor" for the Premiere is growing. The idea is that instead of the throwaway ephemera of cut flowers brightening up the place for an all-too-brief moment before being thrown in the trash, instead we will literally green the event by decking the halls with boughs of salad. Picture contented VIP guests frolicking like, erm antelopes in their natural habitat, and assembling their own super-fresh canapes to graze on from the surrounding foliage. Yum.

London Premiere - the 1% Event

At our London Premiere earlier this year, we brought in guests by an assortment of different low-carbon transportation, from bicycle rickshaws and chip-fat fuelled vans to the futuristic solar powered car that Piers (the British wind-farm guy from the film) arrived in. But the New York venue has let us go one better, since it is right on the river...

The Good Ship Stupid

Actually, she's called Ventura, but she'll be Stupid for the day as she delivers celebrity guests from Chelsea Pier to the Green Carpet (which is made from recycled soda bottles no less) and into the Solar Cinema Tent. More bravely perhaps, some waterborne guests will be traveling by rowing boat (named the Rachel Carson, of Silent Spring fame!) - which is really quite tricky as the currents are strong and unpredictable. There will be five people rowing for an hour to deliver a couple of high profile guests to the Green Carpet. Tough for the rowers, but great for the Stupid story - and for the photographers. Will they make it in time for the start of the film? Or will they be swept out to sea, never to be seen again?

As well as the marine shenanigans, we'll have guests gravitating towards the Solar Cinema by public transport, pushbikes (with a bike valet serivice, naturally), cycle rickshaws, and these bad-ass electric cars, charged from renewable electricity...

Tesla roadster

E-Mini

From our friends at the Beautiful Earth Group. I want one (don't tell anyone I said that).

The whole event will be powered renewably of course, by solar, bio-diesel from waste and pedal-powered sound system. No plastic cups or bottled water will be in view either - strictly re-usable bottles filled with tapwater - and instead of that carbon-hungry air-conditioning, guests will be given hand-ade fans to cool themselves with. Elegant and environmentally friendly.

So who's coming?

Franny and Lizzie (Director & Producer of Stupid, in case you somehow missed that) are ever present of course, and they'll be joined by a dazzling array of climate change A-listers:

Stupid is not the only show in town on the 21st by the way: we chose the date partly because the UN's Climate Week is taking place in New York at the same time - and we are now officially a part of it. Tony Blair is launching it on the same day as our Premiere...

http://vimeo.com/6513929

10:10 is The Age of Stupid's answer to the question of 'what can I do?'

We've been being asked that question ever since the first public screening of Stupid, and at every screening since. It's very hard to give a clear, simple, positive answer to a question like that. I mean, what can an ordinary person do in the face of a threat so vast and unassailable?

We realised that effective action on climate change means collective action. While scientists say we need a roughly 10% cut in emissions in the developed world next year, even governments like the UK's - who are genuinely leading the world in terms of concrete commitments to emissions targets - have nothing like that level of ambition, or sense of urgency.

But we can't sit on our hands any longer waiting for somebody else to do something, and judging from the questions at screenings all over the developed world, people feel ready to try to get on with making a difference themselves. All we need is a clear place to start - and that's where 10:10 comes in. 

By committing to cut your emissions by 10% in 2010, you will join thousands of individuals, schools, hospitals, businesses and organisations all actively helping to combat climate change by making simple changes to their lifestyles, homes and workplaces. More importantly, your voice will help to put pressure on the politicians to cut Britain’s emissions as quickly as the science demands. If we in the UK can prove that fast, deep cuts can be made at a national level, then we may just inspire all the other big polluting countries to follow suit.

10:10 is initially launching as a national campaign to cut the UK's domestic emissions, but as ever at Stupid Towers, you may have guessed that we have plans to take this thing global, so watch this space - or keep your eye on 1010uk.org over the coming weeks.

In the meantime, please get on with telling everyone you know to get signed up to make 10:10 happen. This can only work if we get enough people, schools, businesses and other organisations behind it, and judging by the momentum it has already, we actually think that we might have a chance of making a genuine difference in the struggle to prevent catastrophic climate change. Let's get started.

 Thurs 27, Fri 28, Sat 29 August, 4pm to 8pm - to flyer at central London tube stations & other locations
Weekend of 29->31st August - to flyer at Notting Hill Carnival

Tuesday 1st September - launch day - 30 volunteers needed for lots of fun stuff in central London. Some with laptops.

Please contact alex@1010uk.org

Full article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/13/business/media/13independent.html

And now it's getting syndicated all over the place. Like in The Scotsman and the Herald Tribune and Business Week

Please join 10:10 today

10:10 is The Age of Stupid's answer to the question of 'what can I do?'

We've been being asked that question ever since the first public screening of Stupid, and at every screening since. It's very hard to give a clear, simple, positive answer to a question like that. I mean, what can an ordinary person do in the face of a threat so vast and unassailable?

We realised that effective action on climate change means collective action. While scientists say we need a roughly 10% cut in emissions in the developed world next year, even governments like the UK's - who are genuinely leading the world in terms of concrete commitments to emissions targets - have nothing like that level of ambition, or sense of urgency.

But we can't sit on our hands any longer waiting for somebody else to do something, and judging from the questions at screenings all over the developed world, people feel ready to try to get on with making a difference themselves. All we need is a clear place to start - and that's where 10:10 comes in.

By committing to cut your emissions by 10% in 2010, you will join thousands of individuals, schools, hospitals, businesses and organisations all actively helping to combat climate change by making simple changes to their lifestyles, homes and workplaces. More importantly, your voice will help to put pressure on the politicians to cut Britain’s emissions as quickly as the science demands. If we in the UK can prove that fast, deep cuts can be made at a national level, then we may just inspire all the other big polluting countries to follow suit.

10:10 is initially launching as a national campaign to cut the UK's domestic emissions, but as ever at Stupid Towers, you may have guessed that we have plans to take this thing global, so watch this space - or keep your eye on 1010uk.org over the coming weeks.

In the meantime, please get on with telling everyone you know to get signed up to make 10:10 happen. This can only work if we get enough people, schools, businesses and other organisations behind it, and judging by the momentum it has already, we actually think that we might have a chance of making a genuine difference in the struggle to prevent catastrophic climate change. Let's get started.

See you at Tate Modern 4-7pm this afternoon (Tuesday 1st Sep) for free champagne for the first 1010 signups, free tags (very very cool - made from a recycled 747), a free concert with Sara Cox MC, Reverend & The Makers and Stornoway, plus a 1010 megapixel gigapan photoshoot for all 10:10ers present and an introduction to the 10:10 project from some of the people behind it...

Check out the Guardian's monster coverage of 10:10 here - http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/10-10

Solar panel powering the event
The traditional Maori welcome set the tone for the night with it's relaxed but genuine and intense message about people coming together to share an important message.

Oxfam and Greenpeace co-hosted the premiere brilliantly co-ordinating all the logistics, volunteers, guest lists and press invites including making the event as low-carbon as possible. They charged the solar panels for two days beforehand to make sure we had enough energy for the premiere itself, and instead of using batteries (inefficient & toxic) we fed the electricity into the grid for 48 hours then drew down the same amount on the night. Top Kiwi actors including Keisha Castle-Hughes (Whalerider & Star Wars) and Lucy Lawless (Xena, the Warrior Princess) arrived by bike rickshaw before walking the green carpet (re-used and re-useable), into the tent. Waste was kept to an absolute minimum and food and drinks were all organic and locally sourced.

Some of The Crew
The green carpet is making a habit of being the diva of our eco premieres, always making a dramatic and late entrance, this time after hours of cleaning and vacuuming by volunteers, but once in place it added a touch of glamour to the site adorned with fairy lights twinkling away with Auckland's skyline in the background.

The Green Carpet

Linking by satellite to the Sydney Premiere was a magic moment when the technology kicked in and suddenly we saw our own green carpet arrivals projected onto the big screen in the tent.

Keisha Castle-Hughes Arriving on the Green Carpet

MC Oliver Driver turned his five minutes of padding into a standup comedy routine, and Noelle McCarty covered all the elements in hosting the Q&A session.

Pelenise from Kiribati stole the show with an emotional speech about the impacts of climate change on her life.
 "It may be ugly and rocky, but it's my home and I will not leave" she said about her house in Kiribati which could easily be lost to sea level rise.

The press in NZ have covered the story from every angle imaginable with mentions creeping into the columists' vocabulary on a regular basis, and twenty minutes coverage in total on mainstream telly.

Simon McKinney Arriving on the Green Carpet

We were even featured in the 'Party People' pages of todays' Sunday Star Times who said:
"HIT: Producer Lizzie Gilett - from Dunedin's regional TV station Channel 9 to global phenomenon.
MISS: According to the film, the government's emissions reduction target."

This press coverage is really crucial to get the urgency of the climate crisis across in NZ where the debate about climate change is twenty years behind the UK. Deniers still get a huge amount of airtime and the govt has just announced their pathetic 10-20% target for Copenhagen.

Lucy Lawless and Jim Salinger

Around NZ screenings were held with local speakers from a huge number of NGO partners; Sustainable Christchurch , NZ Climate Action Partnership, EcoMatters Trust , Environment Centre, Sustainable Business Network, Green Party, Sustainable Dunedin, 350.org and Transition Towns.

Dunedin, Lizzie's hometown, has gone totally mad for Stupid with huge articles in the press and on the local TV station, a permanent stall at the cinema, a militant facebook campaign and flyers everywhere you look. All of this work has really paid off - Dunners is now the highest selling cinema in all of Australasia!

Lizzie and Lucy Lawless

Lizzie says:
"I didn't realise how emotional it would be finally bringing the film home to NZ and premiering it in a tent for my family, friends and fellow Kiwis.

To have our independent political documentary about climate change screening in the most mainstream cinemas around NZ, including my hometown, Dunedin NZ, is a dream come true for our team, thrusting climate change into the Kiwi consciousness in an unforgettable way."

Thank you to everyone involved in the premiere especially Oxfam and Greenpeace for putting it all together.

Photos from the NZ premiere:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ageofstupid/sets/72157621976494995/

and

http://www.flickr.com/photos/33813743@N06/sets/72157621966609565/


TV coverage:
Main breakfast show on TV1, Good Morning:
http://tvnz.co.nz/good-morning/s2009-e210809-lizziegillett-video-2936197

Main nightly current affairs show on TV1, Close Up.
http://tvnz.co.nz/close-up/we-stupid-2930494/video
Main nighty news show on TV3, Nightline.
http://www.3news.co.nz/Age-of-Stupid-opens-with-an-environmentally-friendly-premiere/tabid/368/articleID/117352/cat/85/Default.aspx

And the extended interview with Lizzie (and Samantha Hayes) on TV3 website.
http://www.3news.co.nz/Extended-interview-with-Age-of-Stupid-producer-Lizzie-Gillett/tabid/728/articleID/117353/cat/17/Default.aspx

Lizzie's old TV station found clip of her presenting ten years ago and used that in their story.
http://www.ch9.co.nz/content/age-stupid

Magazine coverage:
The Listener - on our site
http://www.ageofstupid.net/node/3329

http://www.listener.co.nz/issue/3615/features/13847/shock_of_the_now.html;jsessionid=A16358D733A0BBDE149A1262A9BB2E87

Women's Weekly! Coming out soon.


Print coverage:
NZ Herald - main newspaper in Akl
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/movies/news/article.cfm?c_id=200&objectid=10591800

Otago Daily Times - on our site.
http://www.ageofstupid.net/node/3329

The Press (Chch main newspaper) - out this weekend.

Sunday Star Times (main Sunday newspaper) - out tomorrow.

Time Out - hard copy coming in post

NZ Herald review:
http://blogs.nzherald.co.nz/blog/film-reviews/2009/8/22/age-stupid/?c_id=1501119&objectid=10592272



Radio coverage:
95bFM's Podcast also interviews Franny. Listen here.

National Radio interview with Lizzie:
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/nights/20090818

New Zealand's answer to Jeremy Paxman, Kim Hill, had a good old chat with Stupid Director Franny Armstrong on one of the country's most popular radio shows. Listen here.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday




We're on Lucy Lawless's site:
http://www.lucylawless.info/events/2009/age-of-stupid/index.php

"It's a shocker-in a good, slap-in-the-face, "holy crap I need to do something about this" kind of way. Set in a dystopian future that makes Bladerunner look quite good after all"
http://good.net.nz/blog/annabel-mcaleer/age-of-stupid-premieres

"The house was utterly packed for the premiere.  If you have not heard about this movie, you absolutely must go see it. "
http://www.celsias.co.nz/article/star-studded-lineup-greets-southern-hemisphere-pre/

Some of the Australia / New Zealand highlights: 

Sydney Morning Herald review: We hogged the whole page in the Sydney Morning Herald. 3.5 stars out of 4, oh yeah baby. A bad review in the SMH can cripple a no-advertising film like ours, so that's a huge relief.  Move over into the little column Michael Mann and Demi Moore...

Sydney Morning Herald opinion piece: "Risks trading on the complacency it sets out to pierce, even as it makes waves that more eminent analyses do not." Read it here.

Courier Mail mega interview with Pete: Oh my lord, they've put Stupid in the same breath as In The Name of the Father...  "Twice in the career of celebrated actor Pete Postlethwaite a role has come along which meshed perfectly with his personal passions. First in 1993's In the Name of the Father....". Read it here.

Indie Film Nation's podcast goes one step further and says that Stupid is "Postlethwaite's most important role". Listen here.

Sunday Star Times:

New Zealand's answer to Jeremy Paxman, Kim Hill, had a good old chat with Stupid Director Franny Armstrong on one of the country's most popular radio shows. Listen here.

The Blurb says that Stupid "Packs more whammy than An Inconvenient Truth and is particularly watchable". Read it here.

Womans Weekly:

95bFM's Podcast also interviews Franny. Listen here.

TV NZ's Close Up Piece.  Watch here.

 NZ 3 News Nightline Piece. Watch here.

Herald on Sunday:

Dunedin's local paper goes mad for local gal, Stupid producer, Lizzie Gillett. 

      NZ Listener Article:

Walk the green carpet, mingle with the celebs, take pics of the papparazzi... it's your big chance to pretend you're a movie star.

SYDNEY: SOLAR-POWERED SYDNEY THEATRE, WALSH BAY
Book online: http://www.sydneytheatre.org.au/event.asp?pID=188
Book by phone: (02) 9250 1999
Book in person: Sydney Theatre, Box Office, Ground Floor Foyer, 22 Hickson Road, Walsh Bay

AUCKLAND: ZERO-WASTE TENT IN THE HARBOUR
Hosted by Greenpeace and Oxfam. Tickets available from 0800 400666

NOT IN SYDNEY OR AUCKLAND?
The premiere can be watched live in 30+ cinemas across Australia and NZ.
Australia cinema list.
New Zealand cinema list.

MORE ABOUT THE PREMIERE

 Full details about the premiere here

Report of the Oz / NZ premiere

PARTICIPATING CINEMAS: NEW ZEALAND

PARTICIPATING CINEMAS: AUSTRALIA

A GREAT SUCCESS - Thank you to all who were involved and who participated in thebiggest - and greenest - live film event Australia and New Zealand has ever seen (probably). On Weds 19th August, the UK climate blockbuster The Age of Stupid will launched from a zero-waste cinema tent in Auckland and a solar-powered theatre in Sydney - all linked by satellite to cinemas across the two countries.

Oz / NZ Premiere trailer

Australia & New Zealand Trailer HD from Age of Stupid on Vimeo.

E-flyer

What do Spurs and Delia Smith have in common?

Why did we chop up that plane?

How can we stop climate change?

Join us at the Tate Modern on Tuesday 1st September between 4 and 7pm to find out.

Live music, big name speeches, gigapan photo for you to star in, performance by our favourite West End show. 

See 10:10's website

PS. Lots of volunteers needed in London and also online for next four days. Please contact alex@1010uk.org if you can help