‘Tomorrow’, the Film

Before the lockdown, a friend of mine lent me her copy of the film ‘Tomorrow’.

Written by Cyril Dion, and directed by Cyril Dion and Mélanie Laurent, the film focuses on the powerlessness it’s easy to feel when dealing with the climate crisis, and what people all over the world are doing to combat this at both a grass-roots and political level.

Featuring segments about urban agriculture, local currency, Finnish schooling, and all manner of subjects in between, the film-makers manage to paint a really positive picture of how our world could look in the near future. And most importantly of all, it looks achievable. The interviews with people who have already made aspirational changes make it look easy, and rather than the feeling of doom that’s so prevalent in much of the media in regards to climate, I came away from watching this with a feeling of hope.

Hope that I could do more, hope that what I was doing mattered, hope that others would try too. The Los Angeles Times Review said it really well;

‘”Tomorrow” swaps the usual handwringing doomsday prophesizing in favor of a decidedly more proactive approach.’

I particularly loved the soundtrack to the film, which is possibly a bit of a superficial take-away from it, but I felt it was so perfect for setting the tone and keeping things positive, but not ‘jolly’. And from a personal stand-point, the division into ‘chapters’ really aided my watching this – it meant that I could sneak a segment in daily whilst the children were occupied with other things.

Have you seen the movie? Is it one you would recommend? I would love to hear your thoughts, and any other suggestions for things I could watch. Contact me here, or on Twitter.

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‘Project Wild Thing’, the film

Project Wild Thing, by David Bond, is a really interesting little film. Released back in 2013, this one has slipped under my radar until now and I’m not entirely sure why… It appeared on my Twitter feed as something free to watch during lockdown and so, excited to see something new, I thought I would give it a go.

I spoke before about how, in order to get children to care about the natural world, we needed to get them out in it, and invested in what was happening there. This film is about doing exactly that.

In the beginning, David appoints himself ‘marketing director for nature’ and from that point on, the narrative just sort of writes itself. He looks at the amount of time his own children spend outside and comes up with a pretty sad pie chart – only 4% of his daughter’s time is spent outside. This is the same proportion of time that she spends in the bathroom.

Speaking to marketing advisors and various creative people, David discovers that whilst parents want their children to go outside and enjoy the natural world, many are too conscious of risk. He touches on our societal fears of abduction and injury and I feel like these points are really important to acknowledge.

The scene in which David interviews a classroom of teenage girls really resonated with my own secondary school experience. In short, the pressure to look a certain way dictated their actions – in this case, they avoided the natural world. They didn’t want to go outside in bad weather because of the clothes they’d be made to wear by parents. It was a stark reminder of the culture amongst secondary children – peer approval really is everything, and unless we normalise the use of appropriate clothing amongst older children/young adults, this isn’t a problem that’s going to go away.

After watching the film, I had a better look at the website for The Wild Network. There are all sorts of things on there which I want to explore more of – specifically the various activity ideas.

At the time of writing, the film was available to watch for free, but even if that’s no longer the case, I would still recommend seeking it out. It’s a properly interesting little documentary.

Have you watched Project Wild Thing? What did you think? Do you have any ideas for other films I should see? As ever, contact me here or on Twitter to let me know.