Crude Impact

A Crude Awakening

March 2006 •English

Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack's nonfiction treatise Crude Awakening joins Maxed Out, An Inconvenient Truth, and other recent documentaries devoted to unearthing and exploring forces that are untying the connective threads of contemporary society. The subject at hand is crude oil - specifically, the depletion of petroleum from the Earth, in an era when consumption threatens to exceed supply.

L’or du golfe

April 2015 •French

Scotland's First Oil Rush

May 2016 •English

Documentary telling the story of the shale oil industry and its lasting impact on the community of West Lothian. Presented by geologist Professor Iain Stewart.

Ancient Sunshine

October 2019 •English

A reflection on anarchism and labor, ANCIENT SUNSHINE marks a path through the struggles of climate activism and coal extractions in the American West.

Anticosti: La chasse au pétrole extrême

May 2014 •French

Planet of the Humans

July 2019 •English

Forget all you have heard about how “Renewable Energy” is our salvation. It is all a myth that is very lucrative for some. Feel-good stuff like electric cars, etc. Such vehicles are actually powered by coal, natural gas… or dead salmon in the Northwest.

Robert Newman's History of Oil

October 2006 •English

Stand-up comedian Robert Newman gets to grips with the wars and politics of the last hundred years, from WWI through to the 2003 invasion of Iraq; but rather than adhering to the history we were fed at school, this show places oil centre stage as the cause of all commotion. This innovative history programme is based around Robert Newman's stand-up act and supported by resourceful archive sequences and stills with satirical impersonations of historical figures from Mayan priests to Archduke Ferdinand.

spOILed

October 2011 •English

America is addicted to oil. President George Bush said so… and now that phrase is echoed everywhere. But are we really “addicted”? Our daily lives are dripping in oil. It’s in virtually everything we use and fuels everything we do. To be sure, it is something to worry about. Are we going to run out? Aren’t we fighting wars for oil? But, if we do slow the flow, how will that change the way we live? When it comes to what we’re told about oil, there’s rhetoric and then there’s reality. Who can we believe? The media? Politicians? Environmental activists? You’d be surprised. For nearly ten years, journalist turned media analyst MARK MATHIS has studied our use of oil. And what he found shocked him so thoroughly that he made a movie about the misinformation, distortions and even outright lies about oil. We do have an “oil problem” in America (and the world), but it’s not what you’ve been told. So, it’s time to Fill Up on Truth… for a change.

Mamirnikuwi

June 2023 •English

After discovering that her home on the Tiwi Islands is at risk from a huge gas project, Antonia Burke mobilises her community creating the first ever Tiwi Women’s Ranger group.

Disobedience

April 2016 •English

Disobedience tells the David vs. Goliath tale of front line leaders battling for a livable world. Filmed in the Philippines, Turkey, Germany, Canada, Cambodia and the United States, it weaves together these riveting stories with insights from the most renowned voices on social justice and climate. Disobedience is personal, passionate and powerful - the stakes could not be higher, nor the mission more critical.

Nuclear Now

September 2022 •English

With unprecedented access to the nuclear industry in France, Russia, and the United States, Nuclear Now explores the possibility for the global community to overcome the challenges of climate change and energy poverty to reach a brighter future through the power of nuclear energy. Beneath our feet, Uranium atoms in the Earth’s crust hold incredibly concentrated energy. Science unlocked this energy in the mid-20th century, first for bombs and then to power submarines. The United States led the effort to generate electricity from this new source. Yet in the mid-20th century as societies began the transition to nuclear power and away from fossil fuels, a long-term PR campaign to scare the public began, funded in part by coal and oil interests.

La Buena Vida - The Good Life

January 2015 •German

The village of Tamaquito lies deep in the forests of Colombia. Here, nature provides the people with everything they need. But the Wayúu community's way of life is being destroyed by the vast and rapidly growing El Cerrejón coal mine. Determined to save his community from forced resettlement, the leader Jairo Fuentes negotiates with the mine's operators, which soon becomes a fight to survive.

Bidder 70

May 2013 •English

Bidder 70 centers on an extraordinary, ingenious and effective act of civil disobedience demanding government and industry accountability. In 2008, University of Utah economics student Tim DeChristopher committed an act which would redefine patriotism in our time, igniting a spirit of civil disobedience in the name of climate justice.

Do the Math

September 2013 •English

It’s simple math: we can burn less than 565 more gigatons of carbon dioxide and stay below 2°C of warming — anything more than that risks catastrophe for life on earth. The only problem? Fossil fuel corporations now have 2,795 gigatons in their reserves, five times the safe amount. And they’re planning to burn it all — unless we rise up to stop them.

Tomorrow's Power

March 2017 •English

Tomorrow’s Power is a feature length documentary that showcases three communities around the world and their responses to economic and environmental emergencies they are facing. In the war-torn, oil-rich Arauca province in Colombia, communities have been building a peace process from the bottom up. In Germany activists are pushing the country to fully divest from fossil-fuel extraction and complete its transition to renewable energy. In Gaza health practitioners are harnessing solar power to battle daily life-threatening energy blackouts in hospitals.

The Solar Film

October 1980 •English

Educational film about solar energy, told with striking imagery and animation.

Coup de poker sur l'essence

June 2018 •French

Tuya's Marriage

September 2006 •Chinese

Set in Inner Mongolia, a physical setback causes a young woman to choose a suitor who can take care of her, as well as her disabled husband.

Paradise

January 2015 •

A seal witnesses its home change as it tries to adapt to a new reality.

Local Hero

February 1983 •English

An American oil company sends a man to Scotland to buy up an entire village where they want to build a refinery. But things don't go as expected.