Present A Planetary Collective in association with Reconsider Film PLANETARY COLLECTIVE Reconnect To Something Bigger. www.weareplanetary.com Running time: 85 mins, Color US & Canada Booking contact: [email protected] / 347-645-8924 Global Booking: [email protected] Public Relations / United States: [email protected] [email protected] / 212-445-7100 Communications/PR/Global: [email protected] / +44 7779 081 885 ABOUT THE FILM LOGLINE A provocative and breathtaking wakeup call - a cross continental cinematic journey, that explores our cosmic origins and our future as a species. SYNOPSIS We are in the midst of a global crisis of perspective. We have forgotten the undeniable truth that everything is connected. PLANETARY is a provocative and breathtaking wakeup call, a cross continental, cinematic journey, that explores our cosmic origins and our future as a species. PLANETARY is a poetic and humbling reminder that it's time to shift our perspective. PLANETARY asks us to rethink who we really are, to reconsider our relationship with ourselves, each other and the world around us - to remember that: we are PLANETARY. In a stunning visual exploration, the film interweaves imagery from NASA Apollo missions with visions of the Milky Way, Buddhist monasteries in the Himalayas, and the cacophonous sounds of downtown Tokyo and Manhattan, with intimate interviews from renowned experts including astronauts Ron Garan and Mae Jemison (the first African American woman in space), celebrated environmentalist Bill McKibben, National Book Award winner Barry Lopez, anthropologist Wade Davis, to National Geographic Explorer Elizabeth Lindsey, and Head of the Tibetan Buddhist Kagyu school, the 17th Karmapa. They shed new light on the ways our worldview is profoundly affecting life on our planet. THE CONCEPT PLANETARY is the follow-up to the award-winning short film ‘Overview’, which captivated audiences with astronauts’ stories of what it means to see the Earth from space; Sir Richard Branson called it “An exceptional documentary” and NPR, Cosmos and Culture called it “Breathtaking”. It has become one of Vimeo’s most viewed videos with over 6.9 million views. PLANETARY takes that idea one step further, exploring our interconnected nature and the roots of our current crisis, reframing it as a fundamental problem with the way we see the world and our place within it. Planetary Collective travelled the world for two years to gather the stunning footage and intimate interviews from renown experts required to tell this planetary story about our current situation, our cosmic origins, and the future of life on this planet. The result is a stunning portrait of the Earth that combines NASA footage and beautiful aerial cinematography with a journey across continents: from the African savannah to the Alaskan wilderness, from visions of the Milky Way above the desert to Buddhist monasteries in the Himalayas, and from the peace of Japanese forest temples to the cacophony of downtown Tokyo and midtown Manhattan. The film opens with NASA astronauts Ron Garan and Mae Jemison (the first female African American astronaut) discussing their experiences of seeing the Earth from space, and the contradiction between its beauty and the difficult reality of life for many of its inhabitants. The planet is in crisis, and we need more than just external solutions to our problems. As Mae Jemison says: “We have to look inside ourselves to figure this out.” The NASA Apollo missions were the first time we were able to step off our home and see it from afar. Physicist Peter Russell and biologist Janine Benyus explore the significance of our ability to look back upon ourselves and identify as belonging to a single species on a planet with a common destiny. Renowned environmentalist Bill McKibben points out that the classic images of the Earth are now totally out of date. The world has changed even in that short time frame. We are faced with countless crises on the planet – climate change, deforestation, ocean acidification, social inequality – but perhaps none so shocking as the mass extinction of species. Cosmologist Brian Swimme and activist-poet Drew Dellinger describe how we are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction on our planet. While previous mass extinctions have been caused by natural disasters, this time it is the result of human civilisation. Using powerful wildlife cinematography, the film conjures a deep sense of the tragedy and importance of this crisis facing our planet. The issue is deeper than we might think – the fundamental problem lies in the way we see the world. Philosopher David Loy points out: “We have not only an ecological crisis… but we also have a kind of story crisis – that is to say there's something very wrong about the way that we understand who we are, and our relationship with the Earth.” The stories that underlie modern civilisation – the idea of endless economic growth, and that humans are separate from nature – have brought us to the brink of catastrophe. The voices in the film show we are in desperate need of a new way of seeing ourselves and understanding our world. This message is the heart of PLANETARY. As Paul Hawken says: “We cannot solve the problems that face us by technology alone or social technologies ... or even civil society, we cannot solve those problems unless we change ourselves.” This central section of the film features contributions from voices including National Book Award winner Barry Lopez, author and anthropologist Wade Davis, National Geographic Explorer Elizabeth Lindsey, and head of the Tibetan Buddhist Kagyu school, the 17th Karmapa. They unravel the ways in which our worldview affects our behaviour, and how the current mainstream view of the world separates us from nature. The turning point in the film is the realisation, as explained by eco-philosopher and activist Joanna Macy, that we are in the middle of a huge transformation, a ‘Great Turning’ from a society based on industrial growth, to a ‘life- sustaining society’. The film conjures hope and awe as it explores the many ways in which our lives are deeply embedded in the biosphere and the entire cosmos that surrounds us. Zen priests Joan Halifax and Alan Senauke, and Tibetan lama Anam Thubten explain the illusory nature of the self, and the way we are not separate, but integral parts of something greater than ourselves. Meditation teachers Ethan Nichtern, Ali Smith and Wes Nisker explore the practical ways to experience and embody this realisation in our own lives. Hopi indigenous elder Mona Polacca, Lakota leader Tiokasin Ghosthorse and Dagara leader Sobonfu explain how this understanding of interdependence has been encoded into indigenous traditions all over the world. The close of the film looks to the future, pondering what a ‘planetary civilisation’ that embodies this interdependent worldview might look like. We are at a turning point, and to figure out how to transform our civilisation, we need to consider the lives of all beings, and all human cultures. Philosopher Sam Mickey says the change will come when everyone realises they are “intimately intertwined with all the other humans on the Planet as well as every being in the Earth Community and all of the complex and mysterious processes of evolution throughout the history of the cosmos.” At this critical stage for the future of life of Earth, PLANETARY is an invitation to see the world differently. Through the experience of awe and wonder at the beauty of our planet we can begin to shift our worldview, and ultimately build a civilisation that cherishes and sustains life. POST PRODUCTION The shooting style of PLANETARY’s interviews was expansive and exploratory: we entered each shoot more with the aim of creating a space where these extraordinary people could think and speak freely than with the intention of hitting bullet points and grabbing sound-bites. The result was a large amount (some 43 hours) of wide-ranging and fascinating material, whose scope and variety left the possibilities for structuring the film wide open. This openness of form led us to continually re-examine and question not only the way we approached the material and structure of our film, but also the actual questions the film itself is investigating: what are the most succinct and powerful ways to reframe the current ecological and social crises facing our species at this point in time? The structural idea we settled upon was based on the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, itself based on an ancient Indian system of medical diagnosis: (1) disease, (2) diagnosis, (3) cure, (4) treatment. In other words: to identify the problem (the ecological crisis and mass extinction of species on our planet); to examine the root cause of the problem (the fundamental misperception that we are separate from each other, nature, and the planet); suggest a solution to the problem (the recognition and experience of our interdependence); and point to ways to implement this solution (meditation, mindfulness, the experience of awe, wonder and beauty in the natural world.) The final piece of our structure is to imagine what the world might look like if we embodied this understanding of interdependence and the intrinsic value of life both in our own lives, and encoded it into a culture that serves as the basis for a planetary civilization. Editing the visual narrative we shot for this film represented a different challenge. Since the approach to the interviews was broad and exploratory, we rarely set out to shoot specific subjects and locations, which would be tied inextricably to the precise content of the interviews. In the same way as the interviews ended up painting a portrait of a certain wave of thinking at this point in history, the visual narrative became a kind of portrait of the beauty of our planet, from stunning natural landscapes to the intensity of its sprawling cities.