Film Review – Truth to Power

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Film review – Truth to Power 11 years ago, Al Gore released the Oscar-winning call to action on climate change – An Inconvenient Truth. Amy Nicholson reports for the IFoA after recently attended a screening of the follow-up to this film, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power, in the atmospheric Somerset House courtyard, where Gore introduced the film in person. The core of the film follows Gore on his Sisyphean task of campaigning, coercing and cajoling world leaders into taking action on climate change. We also see snippets from his roadshow, featuring some alarming graphs and statistics on the state of the planet, and footage from his climate activist training camps. All of this is interspersed with Gore’s candid reflections on his political career, and the film culminates in Gore’s involvement in the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris (COP 21). I have to admit that I left the screening mildly disappointed. Whilst the film tries to act as a rallying call (it makes no apologies for preaching to the converted), the analysis into what is causing climate change and the potential solutions is somewhat shallow. Gore appears reluctant to embrace the radical and rapid changes required to the way societies and economies are structured to address the issue. His self-reflections to the camera take up a large part of the film, and as heartfelt and affable as he may be, it takes away from the universally important message he is trying to portray. Unfortunately, the impact of the film’s climax, whereby a global agreement is reached at COP 21, is dampened by Donald Trump’s recent withdrawal from the agreement. An Inconvenient Sequel does serve a very important purpose – it is unquestionably a good thing that films like this are being made and popularised. Whilst the film has issues that take away from its potential impact, there can be no doubt that it will have served its purpose if it drives some people to act. The film’s stance that strong will and motivation is needed to tackle climate change is undoubtedly true, but it is not enough. It is the responsibility of professions like ours to take proactive steps forward in shaping sustainable economies and societies. .

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Coll. Antropol. 37 (2013) 4: 1327–1338 Original scientific paper The Popularization of the Ethnological Documentary Film at the Beginning of the 21st Century Nik{a Svili~i}1 and Zlatko Vida~kovi}2 1 Institute for Anthropological Research, Zagreb, Croatia 2 University of Zagreb, Academy of Dramatic Art, Zagreb, Croatia ABSTRACT This paper seeks to explain the reasons for the rising popularity of the ethnological documentary genre in all its forms, emphasizing its correlation with contemporary social events or trends. The paper presents the origins and the de- velopment of the ethnological documentary film in the anthropological domain. Special attention is given to the most in- fluential documentaries of the last decade, dealing with politics: (Fahrenheit 9/1, Bush’s Brain), gun control (Bowling for Columbine), health (Sicko), the economy (Capitalism: A Love Story), ecology An Inconvenient Truth) and food (Super Size Me). The paper further analyzes the popularization of the documentary film in Croatia, the most watched Croatian documentaries in theatres, and the most controversial Croatian documentaries. It determines the structure and methods in the making of a documentary film, presents the basic types of scripts for a documentary film, and points out the differ- ences between scripts for a documentary and a feature film. Finally, the paper questions the possibility of capturing the whole truth and whether some documentaries, such as the Croatian classics: A Little Village Performance and Green Love, are documentaries at all. Key words: documentary film, anthropological topics, script, ethnographic film, methods, production, Croatian doc- umentaries Introduction This paper deals with the phenomenon of the popu- the same time, creating a work of art.
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Sundance Institute Announces Major New Initiatives for Films on Climate Change and the Environment
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Types of Movies & Movie Genres
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An Inconvenient Truth: Transcript
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