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Surviving Progress (6)

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Mark Achbar and Martin Scorsese - EPs on Surviving Progress

By Katherine Dodds On September 14, 2012 | 0 Comments

In case you haven't noticed, we have a pretty active Facebook conversation happening, which makes us here at Campaign Headquarters very happy, because it's mostly fueled by YOU THE PEOPLE!

Since we are a small team of volunteers with big battles to wage, we are thrilled to cross-promote likeminded causes and brainstorm how to fight the power. And of course we are happy to shamelessly promote our colleagues fine work - like Surviving Progress - which does have a direct connection to The Corporation through both Mark Achbar (Producer Director of The Corporation, executive producer for Surviving Progress) and Harold Crooks, (writer on The Corporation and Writer/co-director of Surviving Progress.)

For more info on Surviving Progress visit their website. Check out the upcoming screening at the Beartooth Theatre Pub in Alaska.

*editors note: What a civilized idea!

Check out this Q & A about Surviving Progress in two parts with Harold Crooks and Architects and Artisans!

Architect and Artisans Interview: Click here for Part One. Click here for Part Two.

Some excerpts from Part Two:

A & A: Who’s the target market for “Surviving Progress”

Harold Crooks: Our target audience is what Quebeckers call Monsieur and Madame Tout Le Monde, in other words, a wide public. Which is why we are so grateful Variety and San Francisco Bay Guardian reviewer Dennis Harvey described Surviving Progress as:

“ a cinematic wakeup call so cogent and non-didactic even Tea Partiers would be hard-pressed to shrug it off.”

Besides Tea Partiers and all adults in search of a compelling and cogent stocktaking of the state of our world, we especially hope the film will be available to students for a long time to come. Test screenings have shown us young people are moved by the experience of watching it!

A&A: What’s the desired effect on the audience?

HC: To ensure “Surviving Progress” would be a highly cinematic experience – not simply a content-driven documentary – Mathieu was determined the film be constructed without relying on voice-over narration. Mathieu has a special gift for marrying visuals, sound and music and he amplified this aspect of the film in collaboration with cinematographer Mario Janelle and Québec singer song-writer-composer Patrick Watson who shares music credits with Michael Ramsey. As Mathieu had such visionary filmmakers as Godfrey Reggio in mind as models, it’s no surprise one film reviewer described the movie as:

“Koyaanisqatsi” meets “The Corporation.”

A& A: What’s the intent of the film?

HC: By illuminating how ideology, psychology and finance interact with ecology “Surviving Progress” is intended to be a highly engaging and instructive means of understanding why the current tsunami of financial scandals goes beyond the ethical failings of individual bankers.

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Katherine Dodds AKA "Kat" is the founder of HelloCoolWorld.com, the grassroots team behind The Corporation, and is featured in a "Grassroots Marketing" segment on The Corporation DVD set. She is dedicated to harnessing the power of the film to rein in corporate abuse through the development of the Campaign 4 Corporate Harm Reduction.

Surviving Progress a Hit at its New York Launch

By Sandy Haksi On April 10, 2012 | 2 Comments

Coming soon to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Berkeley, San Diego, Portland OR, Seattle, Denver, Chicago, Minneapolis, Columbus OH, New Orleans, Washington DC, Philadelphia & Boston - CLICK FOR U.S. PLAYDATES

Exec Producer Martin Scorcese
From the Surviving Progress opening at the Lincoln Center Film Society in New York City, April 6th, 2012. From left to right: Mathieu Roy (Director), Martin Scorsese (Executive Producer). Photo credit: Rachel Lowery

Surviving Progress opened in New York this past weekend, and crowds were able to enjoy Executive Producer and veteran filmmaker Martin Scorsese introduce the hit documentary. The film has been getting phenomenal reviews and is currently polling with a higher audience rating—88%— than The Hunger Games on Rotten Tomatoes!

“Mathieu Roy and Harold Crooks’ film beautifully pieces together bits of history into an overarching discussion about the meaning and value of human progress, much in the same vein as Adam Curtis’s lyrical documentaries … a visually and intellectually engaging film.”- Film-Forward

You can contribute to the success of Surviving Progress by joining the event on Facebook, following @CorporationFilm, and tweeting #SurvivingProgress to stay involved in the conversation.

SURVIVING PROGRESS GETS RAVE REVIEWS!

Earth Island Journal - "Surviving Progress is essential viewing. It’s among the best eco-docs since 2006’s Oscar-winning An Inconvenient Truth. The interviews and archival footage are spliced with cinematically splendid close-ups revealing the wonder and splendor of a natural world that we must save — along with ourselves."

Film-Forward - "Mathieu Roy and Harold Crooks’ film beautifully pieces together bits of history into an overarching discussion about the meaning and value of human progress, much in the same vein as Adam Curtis’s lyrical documentaries … a visually and intellectually engaging film.”

New York Times - "Zippily edited and nicely photographed, 'Surviving Progress' is a fine summary of a hot ugly mess." — MANOHLA DARGIS

Village Voice - "A who's who of great thinkers... are riveting as they walk us through the question of whether we will or can survive progress"

NPR - "provocative"

Film Journal - This visually impressive Canadian documentary, rich in expert ideas, is a terrific resource for those who think and really care to know.

Slant - "By turning the idea of progress on its head, the nimble Surviving Progress exquisitely presents to us the possibility that humankind's achievements may cause its downfall." Kalvin Henely, Slant Magazine

Rotten Tomatoes - 77% critics based on 13 reviews, 86% audience - based on 513 reviews

Tag(s): Surviving Progress, Film Launch

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Sandy is part of The Corporation's grassroots team and has been working on the film's outreach efforts since 2003.

Surviving Progress Opens Friday, April 6th in New York!

By Sandy Haksi On April 04, 2012 | 1 Comments

Coming soon to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Berkeley, San Diego, Portland OR, Seattle, Denver, Chicago, Minneapolis, Columbus OH, New Orleans, Washington DC, Philadelphia & Boston

SURVIVING PROGRESS is a stunning new feature documentary that connects the financial collapse, growing inequity, and the Wall Street oligarchy, with future technology, sustainability, and the fate of civilization.

Please spread the word as it's so important for films to do well on opening weekend in order to stay in theatres!! The film has already been a big success in Canada and we're thrilled to see it hit the big screen in the US.

You can contribute to the success of Surviving Progress by joining the event on Facebook, following @CorporationFilm, and tweeting #SurvivingProgress to stay involved in the conversation. Forward our email too!

UPCOMING NEW YORK SCREENINGS:

Elinor Bunin Monroe Film Center
Intro by executive producer Martin Scorsese!
Q&A w/director Mathieu Roy and co-director Harold Crooks at the 7:15 pm show on Friday, April 6th
144 W 65th St b/t Broadway & Amsterdam | 212.875.5600
Showtimes: 10:30 am, 2:50 pm & 7:15 pm daily
Buy tickets

Cinema Village
Q&A w/co-director Harold Crooks at the 7:00 pm show on Saturday, April 7th!
22 E 12th St b/t 5th Ave & University Pl | 212.924.3363
Showtimes: 1:00, 3:00, 5:00, 7:00 & 9:10 pm daily
Buy tickets

Trailer & more info: www.firstrunfeatures.com/survivingprogress

Facebook event page: www.facebook.com/firstrunfeatures/events

For info on Surviving Progress and a Tweet Cheat Sheet to keep the momentum going, keep reading after the jump...

Tag(s): Film Launch, Surviving Progress

SURVIVING PROGRESS! NOW PLAYING IN CANADIAN CITIES!

By Katherine Dodds On December 04, 2011 | 2 Comments

JUST OPENED IN TORONTO AND VANCOUVER, SURVIVING PROGRESS IS GETTING RAVE REVIEWS!

Brian Johnson of Macleans writes: "Turning ideas into seductive, irresistible cinema isn’t easy, especially if they’re the kind of ideas that are good for you. An effective propagandist like Michael Moore, who pulls in a big audience, does it by swinging for the fences of melodrama and farce. And the more sober agit-prop artists often have trouble breaking out of the festival circuit. But a fresh genre of populist persuasion has emerged in recent years that’s met with remarkable success: the dynamic docu-essay . Some notable examples include The Corporation, an likely hit that diagnosed capitalism’s basic organism as a psychopath; The Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore’s power-point polemic, which put global warming on the map; and Inside Job, a forensic inquiry into Wall Street’s 2008 financial meltdown. ....The latest example is Surviving Progress, a Canadian documentary about the increasing weight of the human footprint of the planet. It’s a high-level lesson that is enlightening, engrossing and beautiful to look at. Read the entire article! The article goes on to say:

SURVIVING PROGRESS OPENING DEC 2 IN TORONTO AND VANCOUVER

By Katherine Dodds On December 01, 2011 | 0 Comments

STILL PLAYING IN MONTREAL! Watch the trailer!

THE NEW MUST-SEE FILM FOR THESE ECONOMIC TIMES. From Executive Producer MARTIN SCORSESE and the producers of THE CORPORATION and the producer of THE BARBARIAN INVASIONS.

"Is Wall Street killing the environment? That’d be one of the big questions posed in the new documentary, Surviving Progress, which opens Friday Dec. 2 at the always funky and fascinating Rio in Vancouver and the Cumberland Four in Toronto." So writes Mark Leiren-Young in his latest blog about the film, which also contains some of his interview with one of the film's directors, Harold Crooks.

Image: directors Mathieu Roy and Harold Crooks on Tribute

Harold is lovely man, and one of writers on The Corporation. There is another 'Corporation connection" on the film, Mark Achbar producer/director of The Corporation was an exec producer. Surviving Progress is the latest in what i've been calling "The Achbar collection" of films. For the last four years Mark Achbar has been the executive producer along with
Vancouver colleague Betsy Carson on 10 documentaries made possible by the box office success of the Corporation.

"In light of the Occupy movement, that this film — 6 years in the making — is being released NOW is some kind of miracle of timing!" - Mark Achbar

When Surviving Progress first launched, #OccupyWallStreet had was only few weeks away. Now, as the film made it's sold out debut on the International scene at IDFA in Amsterdam, the Occupy movement was well underway. The film has been playing now for over five weeks in Montreal, and this weekend opens in Toronto and Vancouver. It will also be coming to the US.

As Achbar adds: "After four weeks, Montreal audiences, both English and French, still rate Surviving Progress the #1 film. Yes, over The Muppets, Hugo, Twilight Saga, and everything else Hollywood currently has to offer. Perhaps because it's a film that is relevant to what's actually going on in the world."

LIKE Surviving Progress on Facebook
FOLLOW @Surv_Progress
TWEET #SurvivingProgress