Documentary Production and Distribution News

Award-Winning Documentary Carbon Nation Debuts on DVD Aug. '11

By StudentFilmmakers.com
posted Jul 26, 2011, 09:03

Directed by Peter Byck; Produced by Peter Byck, Craig Sieben, Karen Weigert, Artemis Joukowsky & Chrisna van Zyl.

(Louisville, KY) Critically acclaimed documentary carbon nation debuts on DVD on Aug 1, 2011. Award-winning director Peter Byck has been featured on ABC NEWS, Bloomberg.com, The Guardian (UK), the Huffington Post, Fox News Affiliates, PBS affiliates and CleanSkiesTV, as well as many local TV & radio stations in major markets. Byck has been invited to speak at Boeing, Disney, Shell, Microsoft, Walmart.com, SC Johnson, Stonyfield, the Wall Street Journal, Richard Branson's Carbon War Room, the Producers' Guild of America, NetImpact, AREDAY and Yale, Duke, Stanford & Cambridge.

carbon nation is an optimistic, solutions-based, non-preachy, non-partisan, big tent film that shows tackling climate change boosts the economy, increases national & energy security and promotes health and a clean environment. While other good films have been about problems, blame and guilt, carbon nation is a film that celebrates solutions, inspiration and action, making it appealing across the political spectrum.

"I found Carbon Nation to be the best film on climate change that I've seen. Not only is it simply and incredibly well made film, its focus on solutions is quite empowering. But it's the stories of Red State folks creating the clean energy revolution that steal the show. Entertaining, informative, empowering -- quite a combination." --Evangelical Environmental Network

Byck says: "In 15 months of presenting the film to very diverse audiences, we have come to the realization that we are not a polarized country, as many on TV will tell us, and many in Washington play out. Rather, there is great consensus among a large and varied group of Americans: renewable energy sources and using less energy are great ideas -- whether to boost the economy, increase national and energy security and promote health and a clean environment. As it stands now, good Americans are being lied to, told that we are polarized, and then many act out as if this were true, creating a self-fulfilling crash. It's a storytelling problem."

Narrated by Bill Kurtis, the cast includes Richard Branson (CEO, Virgin Group), Thomas L. Friedman (New York Times), Former CIA Director James Woolsey, Van Jones (Founder, Green For All), Col. Dan Nolan, U.S. Army (Ret.), Amory Lovins (Chairman, RMI), Art Rosenfeld (Commissioner, California Energy Commission), Denis Hayes (Founder of Earth Day), Ralph Cavanagh (NRDC), Lester Brown (Earth Policy Institute), John Rowe (CEO, Exelon) and Jim Rogers (CEO, Duke Energy).

After a year in the festival circuit, carbon nation opened theatrically in New York on February 11, 2011. Theatrical runs followed in Los Angeles, Austin, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and Chicago. There have been over 600+ word-of-mouth screenings (and many more in the pipeline). carbon nation has been featured in Canada, South Africa, Sweden, The Netherlands, Jordan, Israel, Belgium, Australia, Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Ireland, Italy and has also enjoyed sold-out screenings in London & Cape Town.

*The carbon nation DVD includes special features including 8 deleted scenes, 2 audio commentaries, 3 new bonus cartoons, the theatrical trailer, and Peter Byck's award-winning feature documentary film "Garbage" -- Winner, Best Documentary, SXSW Film Festival.