A futuristic feature film about climate change, that was funded by selling shares to myriad independent groups and individuals, is coming to the Filmhouse in March for a week on its opening run.
The film will have its world premiere in London on 14th March.
The Age of Stupid was made by Franny Armstrong, the feisty director behind feature documentaries McLibel and Drowned Out, for the relatively small production budget of £450,000.
The 90-minute film stars Oscar-nominated Pete Postlethwaite (Brassed Off, In The Name of the Father) as a survivor in a climatically devasted world in 2055, who is looking back at archive footage from half a century earlier and wondering why people didn't do more to avert disaster.
The film blends into this futuristic narrative, contemporary documentary stories: an 82-year old French mountain guide, a business man starting a low-cost airline in India, a Shell oil man who rescued 100 people after Hurricane Katrina, an impoverished woman living in Shell's profitable oil region in Nigeria, two Iraqi refugee kids trying to find their brother, and a windfarm developer fighting the anti windfarm lobby in England.
Postlethwaite spent three days on the film - "1 day prep, 1 day filming, 1 day voiceover." He joked that his most memorable moment was "finding out that it wasn't just a voiceover, but an on-screen role."
After its theatrical release in the UK the filmmakers will be bringing out a DVD and then taking the drama to the Copenhagen UN Climate Summit in December of this year.
Armstrong said: "We want to be part of the sea change in awareness which leads to the
greatest ever public uprising which in turn forces the world's
Governments to make a binding international agreement to cut global
emissions so as to stabilise global temperatures below two degrees and
keep the planet habitable for humans and other species."