A Sundance award-winning feature documentary about the founders of Greenpeace.
Since our launch at Sundance in January, How To Change The World has had a fantastic press and audience response at festivals and in cinemas. But now we want to take this story to the widest possible international audience in the lead up to the UN Paris Climate Summit, the most important meeting of world leaders about climate change this decade.
It’s taken 7 years to bring the story of the founders of Greenpeace to the screen, since first discovering over a thousand cans of 16mm film in the vaults of the Greenpeace archives.
What drew me to the material is that shows a unique attempt to effect global change by a small group of committed, idealistic pioneers. At the same time it is the story of all nascent groups. The men and women who came together in those early years were an eclectic gang whose different skills contributed to a group that combined scientific rigour and engineering savvy with beliefs in the I-Ching and First Nations mythology…
Some were in it for the politics, some for the science, some just for the adventure. But like a band with an unexpected hit song that catapults them to global fame, the media success of their first anti-whaling campaign forced them into a maelstrom, which at times threatened to destroy everything they had accomplished.
The Greenpeace founders’ reflections on this period speak not only of environmentalism, but of all movements for change, and also of the dilemmas of growing up and growing older: the tension between youthful idealism, ego and courage on the one hand, and maturity, pragmatism and political manoeuvring on the other.
I think their experience has a lot to teach us, at a time when action for the environment is more urgent than ever.
Help us reach our goal and bring the film to cinemas worldwide.
In 1971 an eclectic group of pioneers – hippies, journalists, musicians and scientists – set sail from Vancouver in an old fishing boat. Their mission was to stop Nixon’s atomic bomb tests on a tiny island off Alaska. Amongst them was Bob Hunter, a charismatic journalist who, over the next five years, somehow managed to bind the ‘mystics and the mechanics’ into a group with a single purpose, often at huge cost to himself.
Alongside a group of passionate and idealistic young friends, Hunter was instrumental in creating the global organization we now know as Greenpeace, changing the way we look at the world and our place within it.
A prizewinner at Sundance Film Festival, How To Change The World draws on interviews with the key players & stunning footage of their jaw-dropping actions, bringing these extraordinary characters and their intense, sometimes eccentric & often dangerous world alive.
At a time when we need to engage with environmental & wider political problems on a global scale, this story of the impact one small group of people can get us thinking not only about how we act individually but in partnership with each other. The film is launching in the lead-up to the Paris UN Climate Summit – the most important global meeting on climate change this decade. Our aim is to inspire a new generation to believe in our ability to make change with as many worldwide screenings as possible.
BOB HUNTER is the main character of our film and a visionary icon in the movement. He joined Greenpeace for the first campaign against nuclear testing, and thereafter became the leading figure in the movement. As the organization’s first president, his media savvy and political ideas helped define the character and methods of early Greenpeace. He led the first anti-whaling campaigns, which led to a ban on commercial whaling. Later on, Hunter began a career as environmental reporter for Toronto’s CityTV and published 13 books. In 2005, he passed away from terminal cancer, but his legacy still lives on today …
We have lots of great rewards as thanks for supporting our worldwide release. Get limited edition merchandise that are exclusive only to Kickstarter. Check out some of the rewards below OR see a list of ALL the rewards here —–>
FAN COMBO: T-Shirt, Poster and DVD (£100)
HOW TO CHANGE THE WORLD DVD + ALL PREVIOUS FILMS by Director Jerry Rothwell (£60)
GREENPEACE BOOK COLLECTION: Limited-edition book collection, signed (£350)
We want to use the fund to give the film a great start in venues like New York and Los Angeles, (which will also qualify it for Oscar consideration). We also want to have the film seen in communities around the world in time for the UN Paris Climate Summit. The funds will be used to cover booking these key cinema runs, doing targeted online and print advertising and employing a seasoned publicist with experience reaching our target audiences. The more we raise the more we’ll be able to extend theatrical screenings of the film to other countries. See abreakdown of our campaign financials: