Award winning and world renowned filmmaker Damon Gameau is bringing his latest documentary to theatres this May and local audiences are being encouraged to attend a special screening in Dubbo.
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In the documentary '2040', Damon explores what the world could look like if people embrace the best solutions available to improve the planet.
The Australian filmmaker structures '2040' as a letter to his young daughter, blending visual effects and traditional documentary together to tell the story.
The world premiere of 2040 was held at the Berlin International Film Festival earlier this year.
Getting Damon and the film to Dubbo for a special screening was made possible thanks to local businessman and Mike Parish.
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For many years Mike has worked in regenerative agriculture, holistic farming.
He is also a member of the Healthy Soils Australia organisation whose aim is to create awareness of soil health and its importance to human health.
Mike first became aware of Damon's work after watching his 2014 documentary 'That Sugar Film'.
"When I watched that I thought that was a terrific doco that he'd done...," Mike said.
He quickly became a fan and after commenting on a social media post, Mike then offered his technical advice to Damon for the 2040 documentary.
They got chatting and a friendship was soon formed, which also lead to Damon coming to visit a farm in central west, NSW.
Mike said the 2040 documentary will be an "eye-opener to a lot of people."
"Especially young people who look at it and say 'that's a future I'd like to have for myself'," he said.
Mike also said audiences will get 'hope' out of the documentary.
"We've got all of this climate change and all these things going on in the world, but there's some things we can do (to make it better)...," he explained.
After the film is shown, Mike, Damon plus Dr Fiona McKenzie from Orange Compass and regenerative farmer Charlie Arnott will be available to answer audiences questions in a Q&A style panel.
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Damon said Mike was "inspirational" in terms of getting him on board to explore healthy soils and regenerative agriculture in the documentary.
"I do owe a lot to Mike and I sat around his kitchen table a couple of times with his family and went a little bit deeper. He really did get the ball rolling on raising my awareness of these issues which I'm really grateful for," Damon said.
The filmmaker said a big motivation for 2040 was showing the positive aspects of what the future could hold, because many Hollywood movie are often devoid of any nature and we're not living a very good life.
"The more we get bombarded with this negative information and this overwhelm we can actually shut down, it can be quite paralysing in terms of the motivation to take action," he said.
With the documentary Damon wanted to insert a different narrative that focuses on solutions and reminds people that there are many others out there doing great things and the technology exists
"We've got everything we need, we've just got to get on with it. The film is just a reminder for that," he said.
Damon said he was looking forward to getting back out to Dubbo, a place he was last at for the That Sugar Film screening.
He hopes that the documentary is able to show people in metropolitan areas just how important healthy soils are and the roles that farmers play in our future.
"I'm really interested to see what discussion we get in areas like Dubbo...," he said.
Taylor Jurd
Hi, my name is Taylor Jurd. I am a journalist with Australian Community Media, I write for the Western Magazine and Wellington Times.
Hi, my name is Taylor Jurd. I am a journalist with Australian Community Media, I write for the Western Magazine and Wellington Times.
