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EXCLUSIVE: For nan grassroots activists successful a caller documentary, confronting Big Oil and biology racism isn’t an idle pastime. It’s not a drill. It’s a matter of urgency involving nan wellbeing of their communities and themselves.
The trio of Justin J. Pearson, Roishetta Ozane, and Sharon Wilson shape nan bosom of This Is Not a Drill, nan movie directed by Oscar nominee Oren Jacoby.
The documentary, which held its world premiere astatine nan Telluride Film Festival past year, screens Wednesday – Earth Day – astatine Film Society of Lincoln Center successful New York City. On April 30, nan nonfiction characteristic will station to Patagonia’s YouTube page, wherever it tin beryllium viewed for free.
We person your first look astatine nan documentary successful nan teaser-trailer below.
“As utmost upwind astir nan world grows deadlier, a caller procreation of leaders is rising to look nan challenge,” notes a explanation of This Is Not a Drill. “In nan American South, difficult deed by ambiance disasters, 3 improbable heroes return connected 1 of nan astir powerful industries successful nan world.”
One of those heroes – Justin Pearson – is simply a personnel of nan Tennessee House of Representatives who made headlines successful 2023 erstwhile he and different authorities rep were expelled from nan Republican-controlled legislature for staging a weapon power protestation connected nan House level (he was later reappointed).
Roishetta Ozane, meanwhile, “a mother of six from Louisiana, transforms individual nonaccomplishment into governmental action, taking her conflict from nan storm-ravaged streets to nan halls of Congress.” Fifth-generation Texan Sharon Wilson, “a erstwhile lipid insider turned methane hunter, uses infrared cameras to expose invisible deadly gases pouring from fracking sites and pipelines successful Texas that person been hiding successful plain sight.”
The documentary explores really those activists nexus up pinch unexpected friends successful descendants of John D. Rockefeller, nan tycoon who controlled Standard Oil.
The movie synopsis states, “This Is Not a Drill is nan communicative of courage, betrayal and grassroots victories showing really people, equipped only pinch grit and determination, tin guidelines up to power.”
The documentary is simply a Patagonia Films and Storyville Films accumulation successful relation pinch Ford Foundation and JustFilms. It won nan assemblage grant for Best Documentary Feature astatine nan 2025 GlobeDocs Film Festival successful Boston.
The movie is directed by Oren Jacoby and written and produced by Oscar nominee Betsy West (RBG, Julia). Along pinch West, producers see Sam Jinishian, Janet Klein, Alex Lowther, and Monika McClure. Sam Pollard served arsenic consulting producer. Executive producers are Geralyn Dreyfous, Melony and Adam Lewis, and Melissa Johnson. Ilya Chaiken edited nan film; original euphony is by Joel Goodman.
Directors of photography are Rachel Beth Anderson, Buddy Squires, Tom Hurwitz, Stefan Wiesen, Bob Richman, Jason Longo, and Andy Sarjahani.
In a director’s statement, Jacoby says nan stories of his protagonists – Pearson, Ozane, and Wilson – “led maine arsenic a head to nan cinematic connection of a detective-story. They are nan investigators. They are casing nan segment of crimes they saw being committed and are holding nan manufacture accountable for hurting them and their families. This Is Not a Drill shows really they came up pinch blase methods to conflict backmost and marshal that grounds to build beardown cases.”
Jacoby continues, “Justin, Roishetta, and Sharon are mean citizens who person go portion of an organized guidance that is making nan description of lipid and state infrastructure much difficult. They understand that this could beryllium nan astir effective strategy successful nan urgent effort to slow down ambiance change.”
Watch nan teaser-trailer for This Is Not a Drill here.
