The 11th Hour

The 11th Hour is a 2007 feature film documentary, created, produced and narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio, on the state of the natural environment. It was directed by Leila Conners Petersen and Nadia Conners and financed by Adam Lewis, Pierre André Senizergues and Doyle Brunson, and distributed by Warner Independent Pictures. Its world premiere was at the 2007 60th Annual Cannes Film Festival (May 16-27, 2007) and it was released on August 17, 2007, in the year in which the Fourth Assessment Report of the United Nations global warming panel IPCC was published and about a year after Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, a movie-documentary about global warming.

Plot

With contributions from over 50 of the world's most prominent thinkers and activists, including former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, physicist Stephen Hawking, Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai, and journalist Paul Hawken, the film documents the grave problems facing the planet's life systems. Global warming, deforestation, mass species extinction, and depletion of the oceans' habitats are all addressed. The film's premise is that the future of humanity is in jeopardy.

The film offers hope and potential solutions to these problems by calling for restorative action by the reshaping and rethinking of global human activity through technology, social responsibility and conservation. Scientists and environmental advocates such as David Orr, David Suzuki, and Gloria Flora paint a portrait for a radically new and different future in which it is not humanity's intent to dominate the planet's life systems, but to mimic and coexist with them.

Quotes
“ Global warming is not only the number one environmental challenge we face today, but one of the most important issues facing all of humanity ... We all have to do our part to raise awareness about global warming and the problems we as a people face in promoting a sustainable environmental future for our planet. ”

—Leonardo DiCaprio.

Criticism

Patrick Moore, Co-Founder of Greenpeace, directly criticized Leonardo DiCaprio and the film The 11th Hour in an article for the Vancouver Sun on August 29, 2007 titled ‘An Inconvenient Fact’
“ DiCaprio's movie, The 11th Hour, is another example of anti-forestry scare tactics, this time said to be "brilliant and terrifying" by James Christopher of the London Times.
Maybe so, but instead of surrendering to the terror, keep in mind that there are solutions to the challenges of climate, and our forests are among them.
This film should be a good, clear reminder for us to put the science before the Hollywood hype. ”

—Patrick Moore, in the August 29, 2007 issue of The Vancouver Sun,

Greenpeace co-founder Paul Watson claims that "Today, [Moore is] a mouthpiece for some of the very interests Greenpeace was founded to counter, notably the timber and plastics industries", and that his statements are suspect.

What a Way to Go, a movie covering similar themes to those in The 11th Hour, was released in August 2007. A review comparing the two movies concludes that "... these are very different movies. An average child could safely see The 11th Hour as it is a sanitized account of reality, whereas What a Way to Go is more confronting. There is a place for both movies: ... The 11th Hour breaks it gently for those who have not previously thought deeply about Earth's environment - the viewer takes away images and impressions. What a Way to Go is the advanced course for those who are prepared to examine critically our way of life - the viewer takes away ideas, even subversive ones."

Release

Box Office

The film generated $60,853 from four locations in its first weekend of release.

(Credit: Wikipedia)

Websites

11thhourfilm.com

Official Eleventh Hour Action site

Profiles

Leonardo DiCaprio

Environmentalists and the environment


Media Man Australia attended this film at Bondi OpenAir