VANCOUVER — Movie stars, politicians and environmentalists crowded the green carpet Tuesday evening at the Vancouver premiere of The Age of Stupid, a new movie about global warming.
The drama-documentary-animation hybrid film is the latest from Franny Armstrong, director of McLibel, and stars the Oscar-nominated Pete Postlethwaite as an old man living in 2055. As the man watches footage from 2008, he asks why people didn’t act to stop climate change before it was too late.
“I think that’s an incredibly important question to ask ourselves,” said Tzeporah Berman, executive director of PowerUP Canada, which hosted the premiere at the Fifth Avenue Cinema. “Canada is one of the top 10 global warming polluters. We need laws, not new lightbulbs.”
Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, wearing a suit, rode his bike to the Vancouver International Film Festival screening, where he posed for photos on the green carpet with former B.C. premier Mike Harcourt.
Daniel Cudmore, 28, who plays the vampire Felix in the Twilight New Moon and Eclipse movies, hopes The Age of Stupid will open people’s eyes to climate change. “In Canada we’re behind the times and it’s alarming,” Cudmore said. “You need hard facts to shake people out of their coma.”
Cudmore, whose next movie, New Moon, comes out on Nov. 20, said young people have a particular role to play in speaking out about global warming.
“I think young people fear they won’t be heard, but that’s totally false. We’ve got a strong voice.”
Esai Morales, 47, who stars in Caprica and Battlestar, said global warming is a problem of man’s own making.
“I can’t think of a more pressing issue than our world and the condition it’s in and what we are going to leave for those who follow,” Morales said.
Author Jim Hoggan signed copies of his new book, Climate Cover-up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming.
The film includes documentary footage of six people at the forefront of climate change, including a man starting a low-cost airline in India and another man trying to develop a wind farm in England.
