Roger Hallam Oxford Circus The Troublemaker
Oscar Winning UK production company PASSION PICTURES and multi-award winning filmmaker, SASHA SNOW, alongside renowned sustainability pioneer Thomas Ermacora have today released “The Troublemaker”, a 2-year independent production about our collective response to the climate crisis.
Sylvia Dell from Troublemaker”, a 2 year independent production about our collective response to the climate crisis
“I don’t want my children to look back and think I led a frivolous life and then just abandoned them. I want them to know I did everything I possibly could.”
– Sylvia Dell
Oscar winning UK production company PASSION PICTURES and multi award-winning documentary filmmaker, SASHA SNOW, alongside renowned sustainability pioneer Thomas Ermacora will this week release the “The Troublemaker”, a 2-year independent production about our collective response to the climate crisis. As a society, and as individuals, we have always been defined by how we react in the face of a crisis. This is the archetypal story played out on a global scale, presenting the opportunity for self-discovery if we are prepared to face up to the existential threat.
Red Brigade TRAFALGAR_SQUARE_OCT_2019
“The essence of what is human is the ability to make a decision, a conscious decision on what is right in life, regardless of the consequences.”
– Roger Hallam (XR Co-Founder)
Roger Hallam’s reputation as the eponymous ‘Troublemaker’ is a double-edged sword, praised by some and vilified by many inside and outside of Extinction Rebellion. Whatever your opinion of the man, it cannot be denied that his journey from one-time organic farmer, to social science theorist and one-time co-founder of XR, to ‘political independent’, makes him a uniquely interesting place to start a story of ideas. This is especially true given the prevailing context of political weakness and cynicism.
The film uses not one but TWO prophetic voices as channels for raising this challenge.
Roger is the voice of committed belief in the civil disobedience model of social change, a model that has achieved spectacular results in recent history. But through the journey of SYLVIA DELL, retired mother of 4 from South Devon, we get a glimpse of how this model can play out in the life of an apparently ‘ordinary’, law-abiding citizen.
Sylvia protests OCTOBER 2019 from Troublemaker”, a 2 year independent production about our collective response to the climate crisis
‘The Troublemaker’ scratches the niggling itch that is lurking in many of our brains about the extinction of planetary systems that seems to be going on all around us, and the dawning realisation that something has to be done.
Ultimately the film poses a simple question: with the consensus of informed opinion declaring a ‘climate emergency’, is it morally acceptable to sit back and do nothing?
“As a filmmaker I have spent the last 20 years exploring our fractured and self-destructive relationship with the natural world, looking for stories and people that might inspire us to change, I have always been interested in visionary individuals that attempt to stir society from passive acceptance and who are prepared to suffer for their ideas in the process. Between 2007-2015 I chased the ghost of GRANT HADWIN, an expert logger driven to an extreme protest and a perverse ‘crime against nature’. Grant drowned in mysterious circumstances while kayaking to his own trial.
It was with the same unresolved curiosity that I approached Roger Hallam, co-founder of the then nascent environmental protest movement ‘Extinction Rebellion’ (XR). I am an ‘outsider’ to XR and have been careful to retain my independence, working to craft a story about the ideas and emotions that are driving the fledgeling ‘rebellion’ on our streets, and not to be deflected or distracted by the personalities and politics inevitably involved with such a project. ‘The Troublemaker’ is the result of this 20 month journey, supported all the way by the editorial wisdom of the team at Passion Pictures, one of the finest independent production companies in the U.K.”
Sasha Snow
With three Oscars, three BAFTAs, and numerous Emmy awards, PASSION PICTURES is a global production company with a worldwide reputation for its feature documentaries, landmark television productions, animation and commercials. Notable titles include: Academy Award-winning One Day in September | Academy Award-nominated Restrepo | Academy shortlisted The Tillman Story (Winner: Best Historical Doc Emmy 2012) | BAFTA-winning The Imposter | Academy Award and BAFTA-winning Searching For Sugar Man | Emmy and Golden Panda winning My Life as a Turkey |and the Netflix original and Academy Award-nominated Winter On Fire. @passionpicturesfilms
