A BAFTA-winning filmmaker has created a powerful new short film about the arrest of British journalist and environmentalist George Monbiot.
Alex Lockwood – who won acclaim for his documentary short 73 Cows, about cattle farmer-turned-vegan Jay Wilde – created his new film, Monbiot: Arresting The Truth, in conjunction with We Animals Media.
It follows Monbiot, as he sets out deliberately to get arrested to draw attention to government inaction over climate change, during the Extinction Rebellion protests last year.
‘Nothing changes without a power shift’
According to We Animals Media, the film ‘explores Monbiot’s story, his motivations and why this unlikely hero is putting himself on the frontline of activism’.
In the film, Monbiot says: “When I was a young man, I believed all you needed to do, was to tell the truth, and that it spoke for itself, that if you deliver the information, if you brought back the story, and told people what was happening, and told it well enough and reached enough people then things would automatically change.
“People would see sense. Governments would realize they’d made a big mistake and they would have to change. I just didn’t understand power. I didn’t understand that nothing changes without a power shift, and one thing I’ve learned as I’ve become older is you can only ever be one small part of the jigsaw. However effectively you might do your small part, you have to be part of that wider movement of people, otherwise you’ll just get nowhere at all.”