Toby Litt
Toby Litt has published novels, short story collections and comics. His most recent book is Patience, a novel. He runs the Creative Writing MFA at Birkbeck College, and blogs at www.tobylitt.com. He is a member of English Pen. When he is not writing, he likes sitting doing nothing.
Just over a year ago, I was lucky enough to see Rich Felgate’s documentary, Finite: The Climate of Change.
I’d been asked to chair a Q&A with Rich, Indigo Rumbelow of JSO, and Asad Rehman, director of War on Want, after a showing at the Bertha DocHouse cinema.
I don’t think I did a very good job, because I was still shaken by the images I’d just seen on the big screen.
Finite tells the story of two partially successful protests against opencast coal mining, one in England and one in Germany.
It was the awesome scale of the extraction that had stunned me, and then the humour, passion and ingenuity of the activists’ defiance. I hadn’t seen any other footage that managed to capture anything similar – Rich was clearly an amazing film maker, with a vital message.
That’s why I hope you’ll take a look at the trailer above, and consider helping finance his next film, EVERYTHING IS FINE. The crowdfunder is currently at 65% of the modest target of £70,000. I think they’ll make that, but Sunday is the final day.
Here’s the pitch:
EVERYTHING IS FINE tells the inside story of how far ordinary people in @just.stopoil will go to stop the expansion of oil and gas, and just how far the state will go to stop them. Amid a crackdown on protest and the demonisation of protesters in the media, this film is the real life version of Don’t Look Up. But the filmmakers need your help to tell this story.
And here’s the link:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/everything-is-fine#/
If you’re not able to donate, please support the film by sharing the crowdfunder as widely as you can.