Editor’s Note: Celebrate this Earth’s Day with Eden’s Last Chance. We congratulate Joshua on the completion of his film, and hope that it will encourage more people to get involved in the environmental movement. View more of our coverage on Fairy Creek here.
TEENAGER’S RELEASE OF 2023 EARTH DAY FILM CHALLENGES OUR FUTURE
Amazon will be releasing Eden’s Last Chance – One Teenager’s Journey into the Environmental Movement, before Earth Day 2023 on April 18th. Winner of an Impact Docs award, the full length documentary is 19-year-old Joshua Wright’s first film. Known as a champion of British Columbia’s defense of Fairy Creek’s old growth forests, his aim is to mobilize citizens to take immediate action on the ecological crisis.
“If this is the end of the world, then what do we do? That is the question I wanted to answer with this film” says Wright, the young producer, director, second cinematographer, and editor.
In 2018, Wright dropped out of grade nine when he learned of scientists’ dire warnings that the planet had 12 years to address global warming before passing the 1.5C mark. He would be 27 years old when that milestone was reached. So at 14, Wright picked up a camera and dedicated the next three years seeking an answer to his existential question.
Academic studies and white papers became part of his self-schooling curriculum. He followed climate change experts and was determined to find every new energy project that would further add to an already fragile ecological balance. Wright has become an outspoken climate activist, criticized by corporations seeking to hide their impacts.
While filming in Australia, Wright explored the damage coal has done to communities including the $16B Adani Carmichael coal mine, and the coral die off of the Great Barrier Reef. He documented the destruction of the world’s largest intact temperate rainforest in the Tongass Rainforest of Southeast Alaska and forest defenders protecting Mattole Valley in California’s Humboldt County. More than 15 leading authors and scientists from Europe, Australia, and the US were interviewed for the film.
“Climate change is only half the story,” says Wright, referring to destructive industries. “We as a society are ignoring the reality that civilization itself is the route of the ecological crisis, and that saving the planet does not mean electric cars, it means a radical transformation in the way we live, and the centering of the more-than-human world our society ignores.”
The bootstrapped crew included Joshua at the helm with his uncle, Andrew Wright as first cinematographer and second editor. Wright’s father, Chris Wright, acted as executive producer, and second cinematographer, as well as managing the group’s travel.
Wright refuses to give into despair, choosing instead to work to motivate others into action.
“Do something—do anything,” he says. “Don’t be a bystander in the death of the living world.”
The trailer for Eden’s Last Chance is posted on edenslastchance.com and the press kit is found here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uvsmPNrO3hFcHs7_8bF3DlRqQTswq9jdUVuBYcU7Lbg/edit?usp=sharing
Media Contacts
Joshua Wright, Filmmaker
jawrighter@gmail.com
360-989-8067
Valerie Elliott, Media Relations
iD2 Communications
elliott@iD2.ca
Joshua Wright certainly came to the right conclusion: civilization is the problem (at least physically), and all else after that are just symptoms. Humans should never have started using agriculture, maybe never even have left Africa.
I also fully agree with “do something.” We can’t give up hope and stop fighting, regardless of how bleak the realistic expectations are.
The film looks wonderful and necessary! Maybe more teenagers will make more films, art, poems, gardens, etc.