Film director Damon Gameau (2040, That Sugar Film) invited eight children on an epic adventure across Europe in a school bus powered by biofuel. Their mission: to better understand the planet’s predicament and take the conversation into the boardrooms of some of the world’s largest polluters and most influential companies.
What ensues is the School of Rock meets An Inconvenient Truth, and results in the children: Ruby (Australia), Skye (Wales), Hiva (Norfolk Island), Joseph (Bali), Karla (Uganda), Clemence (Scotland), Joaquin (Netherlands), and Aurvi (Singapore), forming a ‘Future Council’ to advise and influence the world’s most powerful companies on their decisions that impact nature.
I am really interested in these children – what’s the age range?
They’re all ten to 14. There’s eight of them, from eight different countries, all different socioeconomic backgrounds, different eating preferences, different religions. We plucked them out of about 1,300 children who applied, and somehow with a shortlist of 300, we got it down to eight.
How did their parents cope?
Some of the parents came along – I was driving the yellow bus with the kids on it. Then they were in a coach behind me, and then there were three camera trucks – I couldn’t have done it without the parents actually. They all rallied together and we were just all united in trying to tell this story in a bit of a shared purpose. And that just made it a pretty bonding experience. The kids are deeply, deeply connected to each other, it’s pretty magical.
Why was it important for you to make this film?
When 2040 was released around the world, we did a lot of classroom and school visits, and the questions from the children were just off the charts in terms of their level of acumen and understanding around sustainability, and they’d often ask better questions than most adults do, and it was just clear that they know their stuff.
They’re really exposed to a lot of information right now because the internet – more than any generation in history. And so it felt like they didn’t really have a way to express their concern other than protesting on the streets. There was no avenue for them to actually come together, and collaborate, and start to shape and design their own future, and meet with large companies or governments or institutions – so the idea was: how about we get together and see how this goes, and if it goes well, maybe we could do something else with this and that is what happened.
The kids just realised their superpower in this moment. And they all felt, meeting these big CEOs, that they do have agency.
Was there was a wide gap in expectation versus experience for the children?
Yes, but I think that what’s interesting, what happened in the film, is that I realised that we’re not asking these children to fix the problem or to understand the complexities of this system or geopolitics. Their superpower is actually this kind of refreshing creativity that they bring and the creativity that they unleash in others. But most importantly, it’s this morality that they bring.
They’re in a system where there is really no morality, and these corporations are acting like psychopaths and only thinking of short-term profit, there’s something so potent about a child saying; ‘What would your grandchildren think of the decisions you’ve made the last quarter?’
If I asked the kids, what was the funnest thing, what do you think they’d say?
We’ve had that question. Ruby got asked last night and she said it was the community, the camaraderie of the adventure together. I mean, we all stayed in a big house together, we all cooked together, we got up in the morning, we went and filmed together, and we were this kind of massive traveling circus of, complexity, but the game playing and dancing and laughing and sharing stories, that’s what all the kids loved.
You can see Damon Gameau at a special Q&A screening of Future Council at Byron Theatre on August 13. Tix: www.madman.com.au/future-council.
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