The Age of Stupid is Here

The UK climate change doco The Age of Stupid had its premiere in Sydney last night and is now screening at various Hoyts cinemas until next Thursday (August 27).

I've written about the film here at the SBS website. It's really a hybrid, part-documentary, part-fictional, with Peter Postlethwaite providing the role of a fictional narrator, shaking his head as he looks back at today's inertia over the issue from his perch in the future and pulling up different clips from a touch screen..

There's two unconventional things about this launch that other filmmakers and distributors should take notice of:

(i) the strictly limited season - increasingly an option for small, independent films wanting to maximise their PR profile ahead of the more lucrative DVD release; and
(ii) the eco-friendly "green carpet" premiere including satellite broadcast to other cinemas around Australia .

Extract:
"If the film, with its mixture of fiction and documentary, takes a strikingly original form, its “green carpet” launch in Sydney last night was no less mould-breaking. From its screening at the Sydney Theatre the film was beamed to more than 50 cinemas around the country and a claimed audience of more than 10,000, with guests arriving 'by bicycle, solar car, rickshaw or electric car'.

"Every aspect of the event – from transport to the heating to the drinks and the power supply – was genuinely green, says director Franny Armstrong, who adds that the film’s UK launch produced just 1 percent of the emissions of an average Hollywood premiere."