How To Change The World

ABOUT THE FILM:

Before it was the world’s largest activist organization, Greenpeace was the love child of an eclectic group of Vancouver neighbors (journalists, scientists, and hippies). United in their opposition to a U.S. atomic test on an Alaskan island, they sailed an aging fishing boat straight for the test site. Armed only with cameras and faith in the power of images, the rainbow warriors were born.

The byproduct of their media savvy is an archival treasure trove from which Jerry Rothwell has constructed a gripping chronicle of Greenpeace’s early history. Remarkable footage, audio recordings, and photographs capture its most dramatic, iconic, and poignant moments, from the remnants of mass slaughter at an abandoned whaling station to the maneuvering of Zodiacs between the whales and Russian harpoons.

How To Change The World unfolds as a hippie heist movie-turned-high sea adventure but remains an intimate portrait of the group’s original members and of activism itself—idealism vs. pragmatism, principle vs. compromise. They agreed that a handful of people could change the world; they just couldn’t agree how to do it.

We have closed RSVPs for tonight’s event. There is always drop-off with free events, so there may be seats available at the door. If you’d like to try to get a seat, please arrive NO EARLIER than 6:45PM as we will be letting in RSVP’d guests first, then the remaining seats are first come, first served.

Presented by Aquidneck Land Trust

As part of the ALT Conservation Speaker Series & in celebration of Earth Day

7PM – Film followed by Q&A with Emily Hunter, moderated by Meaghan O’Neill

Emily Hunter is an environmental writer and filmmaker. Born into the environmental movement,  her father was the late Robert Hunter, first president of Greenpeace and her mother, Bobbi Hunter, was the first woman to save a whale by blocking a harpoonist at sea. For nearly a decade Emily has documented from the frontlines of global environmental campaigns, from the the high seas of Antarctica saving whales on the vessels of Sea Shepherd to the rainforest of Borneo putting a spotlight on destructive palm oil plantations.

Moderator Meaghan O’Neill is the former Editor-in-Chief of treehugger.com and Discovery Channel online, environmental journalist and Newport resident.