Brands and Impact: Patagonia and DamNation
I wrote about this back during our premiere at SXSW, but the Los Angeles Times just ran a great article about DamNation and how Patagonia and team produced the film and are now (working with me) distributing it and marketing it. There’s also some great quotes from the filmmakers about their thoughts on working with brands, and with the lead scientist and producer of the film on why dams need to be removed.
I am biased, working on this project, but I think this is one of the most significant developments in the doc world this year – brands working smartly with indie filmmakers and scientists to have a greater impact on important environmental issues. I’d love to see more of these experiments, and am working behind the scenes to make this happen with others.
We open in NYC on May 9 at IFC Center (tickets on sale Monday), LA on May 16 at Laemmle NoHo and many other cities. Film Sprout is setting up over 300 community screenings, and we’ll be premiering the film in most Patagonia stores for free on June 5. You can find all screenings here. On June 6 we’ll be available for download to own and rent through Vimeo (you can pre-order now), and yes, we’ll also be on cable on demand, iTunes, Netflix and many other platforms as well. All of them can be found from the website.
My favorite quote in the article comes from founder Yvon Chouinard:
Chouinard said “DamNation” ultimately builds on what almost every child was taught by his or her parent. “If you make a mess, you clean it up. You don’t just walk away from it,” he said. The time has come, he said, to tear down, rather than build, more dams.
“I hope this film leads to a revolution,” Chouinard said. “A revolution about how we think about our water, and how we think about our rivers.”
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