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Truth in Action
FILMINK talks to director Mim Lowe about her documentary, Telling The Truth, inspired by Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth.
With the new documentary Telling The Truth, director Mim Lowe shows how environmental warrior Al Gore's influence has affected a diverse group of Australians now well versed in how to "perform" his ecological slideshow made famous in An Inconvenient Truth.
"I was at pains not to make it too preachy," says director Mim Lowe of her green documentary Telling The Truth. "You need to be able to want to watch it, and at least be entertained by elements of it."
By making this a film that is, on one level, about seven inspirational people, Lowe skillfully avoids the trap of delivering a doco to be filed under ‘Worthy But Boring'. Their inspiration is infectious - what these ordinary Australians do is show how the actions of one individual can make a difference. The message is there and it's urgent, bright green and very scary. Yet watching Telling The Truth, which is aided by a soundtrack from former Hunters & Collectors main-man Mark Seymour, is an elevating, enjoyable experience.
Lowe's subjects were essentially spurred into action by Al Gore's landmark environmental documentary An Inconvenient Truth. As part of The Climate Project Australia - Gore's program in partnership with the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) - the seven are from a group of 250 Australians trained by Gore in Melbourne to become Climate Project presenters. The ex-US Vice President shared all the moves from his famous PowerPoint presentation - the foundation of his film - so they could take the message and accompanying slideshow out into the warmed-up world.
Telling The Truth hones in on a handful of these green messengers as they spread the word, many of them putting their own stamp on the presentation, adapting it to local concerns. The doco made its debut at a packed screening at Sydney Theatre, where Cate Blanchett, a Gore-trained presenter, did the introductions. "I do find the work of the presenters inspiring," the actor told the crowd. "What they have done is achieve an incredible milestone; they've spoken to one in one-hundred Australians."
Lowe focuses on presenters that represent a cross-section of Australian society. She's chosen her subjects well, including Nick Towle, the pushbike-riding doctor from Tasmania; Alex Kanaar, a former Waratahs player, and Jocelyn Uibo, a school registrar from a remote Arnhem Land community. All of them bring something to Telling The Truth.
“I do find the work of the presenters inspiring. What they have done is achieve an incredible milestone; they’ve spoken to one in one-hundred Australians.” – Cate Blanchett
The trip to Arnhem Land's Numbulwar is refreshing. As well as capturing the region's coastal beauty, Lowe's positive portrait of the Indigenous community helps balance out the negative images that have saturated the media in recent times. There to tell presenter Jocelyn Uibo's story, Lowe arrived in Numbulwar one week after "the intervention mob had been in there" and "built a cement pit toilet on sacred land. So there was I, turning up a week later with a camera," says Lowe. "They had every reason in the world to be highly suspicious of me, but I literally left with people calling me their cousin and their aunty. I was walking around and I felt like I had a thousand new friends."
Jim Thompson's tale also leaves a lasting impression. Thompson is a grandfather, electrical contractor and ex-oil rigger from Kalgoorlie in Western Australia. You can see he's not keen on the spotlight and he battles with a nerve-related stutter, but that doesn't deter him from his mission: he became a presenter specifically because he wanted to talk to the "mining end" of town.
The doco's star, however, is the articulate Linh Do, a high school student from Melbourne who charms the audience with her energy and idealism. Do and Thompson are two examples of presenters that have sparked change in their communities. Do's "Change A Million Light Bulbs" initiative has grown into a national campaign, while Thompson single-handedly ensured that Gore's documentary screened in Kalgoorlie.
Lowe, who's been making conservational documentaries for a decade, is an ex-print journalist. She says her media background made her expect to be somewhat cynical about Gore when they met. She no longer harbours any doubts. "I fully and genuinely and completely am certain that he's doing it for the reasons he says he's doing it. It's all for real. It's not just his staging. It's coming directly from the heart."
She says that Gore has found a new way to talk about green issues. "He's pitching what's a fundamentally boring subject about something that's a slideshow, and making the content more of a moral issue than a green environmental issue. That's the departure from a lot of other people who've made worthy films about green stuff."
Like Gore, Lowe feels that's it's all about going "back to grassroots", which is what makes Telling The Truth so unique. Although the idea of the doco screening on television is "not completely off the dance card", the aim is to follow the "peer-to-peer model" of the Climate Project. The call is out for people to become Climate Project connectors. The ACF will give those interested a copy of the DVD, which they can screen for their friends, families and workmates.
"We decided that the actual screening of the documentary could in itself be an action," explains Lowe. "It could bridge that gap between somebody who may know there's an issue and there needs to be something done about it, but they don't know what do in their own lives."
To find out how become a Climate Change connector, visit www.acfonline.org.au/connectors
