Once You Know

Today, like a ship entering the storm, industrial civilization faces the first symptoms of energy depletion and climate change induced collapse as scientists assert that the opportunity to prevent catastrophic climate change has passed. Are some ways of collapsing better than others? Once You Know takes viewers on an intimate trek across the abyss of a world at the edge of catastrophe, into the intersection of climate science and civil disobedience.

Connected to the natural world at an early age, Director Emmanuel Cappellin's worldview is shaken while traveling aboard a giant container ship to Asia, leaving him obsessed with how to best respond personally and collectively to the planet's existential crisis. Trapped at sea with 18,000 containers, his mind spins as he calculates the millions of goods and billions of economic transactions that will take place across the planet just from this one vessel, a cornerstone of the global growth machine responsible for altering the world's climate. Panic attacks take hold of him, and visions of apocalypse flash before his eyes.

This visceral experience becomes a turning point in Cappellin's life as he ponders how climate and energy scientists manage to face similar visions on a daily basis. His quest takes him around the world to meet five of the world's leading climate scientists and energy experts who have coined a new field of study: "collapsology". They share with him the truth, chaos, and hope in their work and allow him to challenge everything he took for granted — from growth-based democracies to personal freedoms.

This odyssey brings him back to himself and to Saillans, a small Alpine mountain village he calls home. In this life-size, open sky laboratory, where everything becomes once again possible: having a child, redefining questions of social justice, implementing participatory democracy, starting an energy transition...The first steps, perhaps, towards some kind of collective resilience.

Once You Know offers a unique perspective, both personal and universal, that re-contextualizes the climate problem as not something approaching, but something already here, and charts out how we can best live in this new paradigm while attempting to mitigate its worst effects.

FEATURING:

Jean-Marc Jancovici, energy and climate expert
Richard Heinberg, Senior Fellow, Post-Carbon Institute
Saleemul Huq, IPCC adaptation expert and climate negotiation advisor
Susanne Moser, IPCC climate resilience and communication expert

FILMMAKER'S STATEMENT: "After working all my life on climate issues and seeing different communication strategies fail one after the other, I deeply felt the need to redefine the subject of climate change by bringing it home, by making it physical and intimate. I wanted to make a film that breaks away from the duality of business-as-usual voices on one side and climate activists' voices on the other.

The film questions both sides and offers a third voice, trembling but true, to reach a growing part of the public who feels increasingly numb because - like the scientists and activists I met for the film, and like myself - they have become skeptical about false hopes.

As a new world emerges in terms of climate politics and local adaptation efforts, the film takes us, through my characters' search for personal and collective resilience, to places where true hope may remain.

I have dedicated this film to the upcoming generation because I believe it is essential to give global youth examples of constructive and humanist ways to involve themselves in what is going to be the fight of their generation. The lure of new forms of terrorism, rising out of claims of climate justice and survival, is a real yet unseen danger. By offering an exclusive insider's account of the internal turmoil and hopes that have led to the rise and spread of the international movement Extinction Rebellion, by calling upon our higher selves in the face of tragedy, I think the film has managed to touch something delicate, true, and urgent."

— Emmanuel Cappelin

Preview link available upon request. Contact support@videoproject for more information

Documentary Film - Video Project - Once You Know

A Film by Emmanuel Cappellin in collaboration with Anne-Marie Sangla

105 minutes

Scene Selection • Closed Captioned

Grades 8 - Adult

Item #: OYK-1198

A journey from the abyss of a world at the edge of climate-induced collapse to one of climate science and civil disobedience

Starting at $89

Licensing Options for "Once You Know" limited to the US

K-12 Classrooms, Public Libraries: DVD - $89 K-12 DVD + Digital File - $139 Colleges, Businesses, Institutions: DVD - $395 Colleges: DVD with Digital Site License - $495 Community Screenings: Please Complete 'Host a Screening' Form found on top menu bar K-12 School District pricing available. Please inquire at [email protected]

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Reviews and Festivals

"STARRED REVIEW. The film, poetically narrated by Cappelin in English and stylishly filmed, has a grim message. An eye-opening reminder that future generations will face the consequences of today's actions, and that we each need to do the right thing."

— Booklist

"Takes a different approach and seeks to prepare viewers for how their lives will need to change if they are to adapt to the inevitable collapse of our current way of life...Well-made and presents a unique perspective about the future with climate change. The film's message is that it is better to know and accept now that we will need to have limits on our lifestyles in the future...Highly recommended for courses in environmental studies."

— Educational Media Reviews Online

"Extraordinary and necessary film. A poetic journey into the teeth of collapse that leaves us with one question: how will I comport myself during this time?"

— Dahr Jamail, author of The End of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the path of Climate Disruption

"A triumph. With rare aesthetic taste, it delivers the facts about our accelerating climate chaos with an almost tender respect for those of us confronting the crisis. Unforgettable portraits of climate leaders in Bangladesh, France, and the US, help make our own choices clear. They leave me feeling inspired to lead a life that is relevant to this global movement."

— Joanna Macy, featured in A Wild Love for the World: Joanna Macy and the Work of Our Time

"A loving, beautifully crafted, deeply evocative film, if one can use those words to describe the poetic personal journey of Emmanuel Cappellin through his fear of inevitable global ecological collapse and chaos to his belief that only a vision of local, community resilience and a transition to new ways of living, creating, and organizing can save us. For those of us working on the edge of this collapse and hopefully this transition, once you know you can never unknow. You can only act."

— Peter Gleick, Scientist, Co-Founder of the Pacific Institute

"A beautiful, heart-breaking, and ultimately affirming journey into the grim future we all face. Once You Know confronts our global trajectory of ecological and civilizational collapse and doesn't flinch or reach for false hope, but helps find a way to live with a truth we cannot unsee."

— Roy Scranton, Author of Total Mobilization: World War II and American Literature

"Cappellin doesn't mean to overcome all of the consequences of climate change. He, like many experts, concedes that it may very well be too late to stave off economic disaster and a collapse of global exchanges due to energy depletion. Instead, his film focuses on our collective ability to confront the challenges ahead and adapt by turning to one another for support...It is a powerful narrative that takes us on a journey around the globe."

— Resilience.org

"An inspiring documentary, with a stimulating subject, with magnificent images...A deep and powerful reflection on collapse"

— Profession Spectacle

"Exposes the vertiginous gigantism of the consumer society and its inexorable decline. In response, the director tries to identify the new narratives that emerge and that attempt to explain the challenges facing humanity...Tells the story of the author's intellectual development, from the moment when he realizes the fragility of our society and the possibility that we have passed points of no return, suggesting the possibility of global collapse."

— Mr Mondialisation

"A film that encourages awareness...In this committed documentary film, the director sets out to meet 5 major climate and energy specialists to understand how to live and think about the future in the face of energy depletion and climatic runaway...The film is a great entry point that lays the foundations for a complex reflection on the energy transition and the urgent realities of the planetary situation."

— PositivR

"An excellent way to accompany your own inner journey"

— Jacques Tiberi, EscapetheCity

"Inspired by an apocalyptic sea crossing on a container ship, he sought out climate experts to learn how to stay hopeful in a world on the brink and best bring about change to try to save this rock we call home."

— NZ Herald

"Intimately portrays four international figures in the fight against climate change...Another documentary with a bittersweet flavor. Sweet for very careful photography and extraordinary landscapes; and sour for the conviction it conveys: that much will be lost in the coming decades if we do not react in time, as individuals and as a society."

— El Pais

"First-of-its-kind documentary"

— Resilience Journal

"Cappellin does not lose sight of the wider context; instead of creating another warning of the impending crisis, he shows how to minimize its effects. He visits people who have had to learn to deal with extreme weather events and their aftermath and talks to experts who are looking for practical solutions for difficult times. Sooner or later we will all have to face the tough questions posed by his film."

— Konrad Wirkowski, Watch Docs IFF

"This intimate yet undeniably ambitious documentary serves as a wake-up call to a planet on the brink of climate-induced collapse...Cappellin's film boldly tackles the big questions confronting everyone today, as population growth and diminishing resources further the trajectory towards the collapse of everyday life as we know it....this poetic and haunting documentary deftly balances global fears with our own personal uncertainty and hints at a future where individual and collective resilience can offer some hope in the acceptance of unavoidable and fundamental change. An important film that's guaranteed to stay with you long after you've witnessed it."

— Adam Mattera, Raindance

WINNER

Terra di Tutti Festival, DamsLab Mention

AFO CZU Film Festival, Grand Prize and Honorary Mention

Earth Day Film Festival, Earth's Choice Award

HKIFF Documentary Competition, Jury Prize

Another Way Film Festival, Audience Award

Tve Global Sustainability Film Awards, Documentary Impact Award

Festival international du film d'éducation d'Evreux, Best Documentary Award

OFFICIAL SELECTION

Kraków Green Film Festival

Swanpool Environmental Film Festival

Seoul Eco Film Festival

International Festival of Science Documentary Film

Festival Ciné Vert

Festival Écrans du Doc, Ciné Toboggan

Festival Terre et Avenire

Festival Terre Vivante

Festival de la transition écologique

Festival un État du Monde

Ashland Independent Film Festival

Corsica Doc

Silbersalz Festival

Festival Le Grand Bivouac

Festival Atmosphéres

Festival Alimenterre

Festival CinemAmbiente

Neisse Film Festival

Festival Écran Vert

Les États généraux du film documentaire

Cinema Planeta

Doc Edge Film Festival

Dokufest

Earth Day Film Festival

Edinburgh International Film Festival

Imagine Science Film Festival

Festival Atmosphere

CinemAmbiente Film Festival

CZU Film Festival

Ecozine Film Festival

Raindance Film Festival

Transitions Film Festival

Sjón International Anthropological Festival

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