The Age of Stupid

(UK, 2009, 89 mins, DigiBeta)

Canadian Premiere

EXEC PRODS: John Battsek, Andrew Ruhemann, Emily James, Paul Goodison
PROD: Lizzie Gillet
SCR/CAM: Franny Armstrong
ED: David G. Hill
MUS: Chris Brierly
Cast: Pete Postlethwaite, Jamila Bayyoud, Adnan Bayyoud, Alvin DuVernay

I hate this film. I felt as if I was watching all my own excuses for not doing anything about climate change being stripped away from me. And it's tender and funny and wise as well. Can I just pretend I never saw it?--William Nicholson, Oscar-nominated writer of Shadowlands and Gladiator.

"The most powerful piece of cultural discourse on climate change ever produced."--Mark Lynas, author of Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet.

"It could be the end of the world as we know it, at least according to UK filmmaker Franny Armstrong's inventive documentary The Age of Stupid, which adds a futuristic, sci-fi twist to the vital issue of climate change. Think An Inconvenient Truth but with a personality... Armstrong hops the globe interviewing an intriguing cross section of folks--a Hurricane Katrina victim, a British wind-farm developer, an aspiring Nigerian doctor, an elderly French mountain guide, a wealthy Indian entrepreneur and an eight-year-old Iraq war refugee--whose lives have all been affected by some aspect of the global warming phenomenon. Their stories vividly highlight the various tentacles of the climate change problem and, in some cases, its potential solutions... At the same time, actor Pete Postlethwaite plays a fictional 'last man on Earth' circa 2055, who's holed up in an Arctic storage facility looking back at archival clips and footage of Armstrong's real-people profiles, in an attempt to reconcile how ignoring climate change led to the Earth's 'total devastation.' [This narrative device]... drives home this absorbing film's crucial cautionary message."--Gary Goldstein, Los Angeles Times

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