I do public interest issue and environmental PR for non-profits and advocates (which is why I’m helping with select pitching of the film), and thought I knew a fair amount about the fossil fuel industry, global supply chains and plastic pollution. But this film taught me jaw-dropping things I did not know, e.g. about the gaming of the plastic recycling system, how the deep entanglement between plastic and the petroleum industry stokes emissions and climate change; how as demand for fracked gas energy falls the gas gets channeled into increased plastic production; how targeting lower income people in developing countries with cheap, single use sachets is taking plastic pollution to a new level, and building up to an appalling degree not only in the ocean gyres, but as the film shows, over much of the developing world.

It’s also well crafted as a film, with compelling people and information, and “Story of Stuff” graphics that make these complex issues intuitive, memorable, and solvable for the viewer.

You are cordially invited to the DOC NYC screening, Saturday, November 9 at the IFC Center on Sixth Avenue at West Third Street. If you think you can get there, RSVP to me and I’ll confirm a comp ticket. If you can’t, I urge you to watch the film and will send you a vimeo link to screen it if you ping me back.

You can also talk to film subjects and members of the production team if it’s helpful. There’s a list of them below, just after some short material describing the film. Let me know how I can be helpful, and thanks for considering “The Story of Stuff” for a curtain-raiser or other coverage.

Best,

Steve Kent
KentCom LLC
914-589-5988

The Story of Plastic is a seething expose, uncovering the ugly truth behind the current global plastic pollution crisis. Different from every other plastic documentary you’ve seen, The Story of Plastic presents a cohesive timeline from the point of extraction to plastic disposal and highlights solutions and the international network heroes working on combating this urgent problem. Shot all over the world, the film is directed by award-winning filmmaker (Backyard) Deia Shlosberg.

The Story of Plastic reveals the oil and gas industry’s shocking agenda to dramatically increase worldwide plastic production. Driven by cheap American fracked gas, the plastic industry is aggressively investing in new facilities to produce exponentially more single-use plastic. As much as the producers would like to put responsibility on the consumers, plastic production and pollution is not about demand- it’s about supply, and the supply is exploding. The Story of Plastic will not only change viewers’ lives but will fuel a worldwide movement.

Presented by The Story Of Stuff Project in association with React Films, with original music by Mike McCready (Pearl Jam), directed by Deia Schlosberg.

ABOUT THE FILM’S PARTNERS

The Story of Plastic is a part of the #BreakFreeFromPlastics movement, a coalition of 1500 NGOs and organizations working with a unified strategy to end plastic pollution. Outreach partners include Greenpeace, Center For International Environmental Law, Plastic Solution Coalition, Surfrider, Kleen Kanteen and The Plastic Pollutions Fund.

ABOUT THE FILMMAKER

Deia Schlosberg (New York City, NY) made national news in October 2016, when she was arrested and charged with 45 years’ worth of felonies for filming the #ShutItDown pipeline protest in North Dakota. Deia produced Josh Fox’s climate change film, How to Let Go of the World and Love All the Things Climate Can’t Change (Sundance/HBO). Deia also co-produced Awake, A Dream from Standing Rock (Tribeca/Netflix), and The Reluctant Radical, and she co-directed and produced Cold Love. Her short film, Backyard, a look at the human impacts of fracking, won two student Emmys (Best Documentary, Bricker Humanitarian Award). She also won the National Geographic Adventurer of The Year Award for hiking 7800 miles across the Andes.

Link: Film Teaser
Link: Film Website

Award: Audience Favorite, Active Cinema. Mill Valley Film Festival

Award: Deia Schlosberg, 40 Under 40. DOC NYC

Film subjects and members of the production team who will attend the DOC NYC screening are generally available for interviews:

FILM SUBJECTS

Carroll Muffett (President, Center for International Environmental Law)
Carroll Muffett (Washington, D.C., United States) is President of the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), a nonprofit organization that uses the power of law to protect the environment, promote human rights, and ensure a just and sustainable society. He is a recognized expert on international environmental law and a leader in the emerging fields of climate litigation and climate-related financial and legal risks. Carroll is lead researcher on CIEL’s Smoke and Fumes investigation into the deep history of oil industry engagement on climate science. He is co-author of CIEL’s Fueling Plastics series, which examines the linkages between fossil fuels and the global plastics crisis. He is an editor and contributing author to CIEL’s Hidden Cost of Plastics series: Plastics & Health and Plastics and Climate. Carroll is a member of the Commission on Environmental Law of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and serves on the Board of Trustees for the Climate Accountability Institute.He is co-editor with Carl Bruch and Sandra Nichols of Governance, Natural Resources and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding (Routledge, 2016).

Elise Gerhart
For nearly two years, Elise and her mother Ellen Gerhart resisted the seizure of their land through eminent domain for the construction of a natural gas pipeline by Energy Transfer Partners. The Mariner 2 East pipeline transports liquified natural gas from shale fields in Western Pennsylvania to a port for shipment to a facility in Scotland to be turned into virgin plastic. Elise, Ellen, and other activists formed Camp White Pine to resist the pipeline, conducting tree sits and other direct actions to delay construction. Elise and the other activists faced threats, intimidation, and arrest by local police and private security firms hired by ETP, which was ultimately successful in seizing their land and constructing the pipeline.

PRODUCTION TEAM

Deia Schlosberg (Director/Producer)
Deia Schlosberg (DIRECTOR/PRODUCER) made national news in October, 2016, when she was arrested and charged with 45 years’ worth of felonies for filming the #ShutItDown pipeline protest in North Dakota. Deia produced Josh Fox’s climate change film, How to Let Go of the World and Love All the Things Climate Can’t Change (Sundance/HBO). Deia also co-produced Awake, A Dream from Standing Rock (Tribeca/Netflix), and The Reluctant Radical (2018). Deia also co-directed and produced Cold Love. Her short film, Backyard, a look at the human impacts of fracking, won two student Emmys (Best Documentary, Bricker Humanitarian Award)

Stiv Wilson (Executive Producer)
Stiv Wilson (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER/PRODUCER) is a waste and plastic pollution expert who is frequently asked to speak on solutions to the vexing inefficiencies in the materials economy all over the world. He’s created and led several campaigns to victory: from plastic bags bans, to plastic microbeads, to plastic water bottles at the state, national and international level. He has sailed over 35,000 nautical miles to four of the five oceanic ‘garbage patches,’ documenting and communicating maritime plastic pollution firsthand through publications, multi-media, and film.

Tony Hale (Writer / Editor)
TONY HALE (WRITER/EDITOR) is a documentary editor and filmmaker based in Brooklyn, NY. As a kid, Tony discovered a joy for editing while making music by recording percussion and mixing it with found sounds. Years later, while pursuing a Mathematics degree at Boston College and working at a media lab at Harvard University, he rediscovered that passion in film editing. Now, having worked as a documentary film editor since 2005, he continues to enjoy exploring the transformative process of editing as a way to bring the power of non-fiction stories to life. Tony’s feature-length editing work includes award-winning documentaries A WILL FOR THE WOODS(2014, co-editor/co-director), CHARGED: The Eduardo Garcia Story (2017), and AFGHAN CYCLES (2018). In addition to winning awards at festivals such as Full Frame and Seattle International, his films have screened at Hot Docs, AFI DOCS, Mountainfilm, Camden, and many more; played nationally on PBS and Al Jazeera America; and been centered in educational and grassroots screening campaigns. His short film work includes several environmental justice and conservation documentaries, an Emmy-winning TV special, and films published by The New York Times and The New Yorker.

Brian Wilson (Writer / Editor)
Brian Wilson (WRITER/EDITOR) cut his teeth in film and video 20 years ago, editing long-form biographical documentaries for Lifetime Television as well as news and cultural reports for Canal Plus Spain and art films for exhibition at prominent galleries. He graduated from Brown University with a degree in Comparative Literature and History and is based in Brooklyn, NY. The 2014 feature documentary he co-directed and co-edited, A WILL FOR THE WOODS, tells the story of a North Carolina man with terminal lymphoma who is determined to receive a natural burial and help save a tract of local woods from being clear-cut. The film won nine awards on the festival circuit, aired on PBS and WORLD Channel stations throughout the US, and is currently being used worldwide to inspire holistic approaches to the end of life that help restore and maintain natural areas. Brian has been honored to further the goals of numerous organizations through his editing on many shorter films, from supporting NYC public school children to responding to sea level rise to building awareness and community in the struggle against the fossil fuel industry in the Southwestern US.