The Age of Stupid

Mar 10 2012

In this 2009 film, set in the year 2055, Oscar-nominee Pete Postlethwaite plays an archivist who looks back on the present and asks: Why didn’t we do something about climate change before it was too late? Unlike the rollercoaster thriller “2012”, the anxieties are not so easily diffused at the end of this film.

Not surprisingly, in light of the stark tone of the film, its funding and distribution model was unusual. The film was crowd funded, and its distribution was innovative. The film was made available at whatever venues could pay, leading to a modest but real revenue. Overall the film was not a big moneymaker. But it raises the question of whether the film industry’s conventional funding and distribution model is resistant to the realities of climate change?