How to Blow Up a Pipeline

A film set in west Texas. Eight people meet in a desert. They know each other from the internet and each has a separate reason. The plan is single. They will blow two points of a crude oil pipeline at the same time. From there the film is a story of preparation. A cabin, a barrel, a chemical mixture, a timer and a rehearsal. They make the explosive themselves. The narrative shows this in detail and never reduces the danger; one of them nearly loses a hand. The reasons open in flashback. Xochitl's mother died in a heatwave. Theo has cancer and the diagnosis is tied to growing up near a refinery. Dwayne's land was taken by eminent domain. Michael lives on a reservation and counts the facilities around him. They do not all agree. Inside the group they argue about what violence is, who will be harmed, and whether this counts as terrorism. What the narrative is interested in is not climate but the limit of action: the film defends sabotage but stages the counter-arguments too and proves nobody entirely right. The structure follows the pattern of a heist film. The narrative takes its tension from technical detail and timing. There is a turn at the end. The plan does not work as intended and a reckoning appears inside the group. The source is not fiction. Andreas Malm's book of the same name is an essay with no characters in it; the film takes its argument and builds a story around it. It was shot on sixteen millimetre film and the image is deliberately coarse. Ariela Barer, Kristine Froseth, Lukas Gage and Sasha Lane are in the cast. Daniel Goldhaber directed and co-wrote. Who it is for: anyone who likes tense, low-budget independent thrillers and political cinema. Who it is not for: anyone expecting neutrality; the film openly argues a case and most of the characters are drawn with a single motive.