How to Change the World

In 1971 a group of friends from Vancouver got onto an old fishing boat and set off towards Alaska. The aim was to stop a nuclear test America was going to carry out there. They did not stop the test, but their footage went around the world and they discovered something: a camera could make a protest more effective than a weapon. Greenpeace came out of that boat. Jerry Rothwell's documentary rests on archive footage never shown before, and at its centre is Bob Hunter; he was the group's guiding mind and wrote down what was happening. The film tells how the organisation grew and how it split as it grew: Paul Watson wanted harder action, was expelled, and set up his own path. The documentary lets both sides speak and does not say who was right. A hundred and ten minutes.