La Croix, 7 October 2009

Green is the new box-office black

Published on 7 October 2009 at 12:48
La Croix, 7 October 2009

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On its front page, La Croix reports on what its headline describes as an "Ecological boom at the box office." Today will see the French release of Le Syndrome du Titanic, a polemical documentary by France's best known environmentalist, Nicolas Hulot, which calls for a greater effort to save the planet and humanity. The film — which deplores climate change, the globalization of the economy, unbridled consumerism, and the excessive exploitation of raw materials — will take its place in a genre that includes Hubert Sauper's Darwin's Nightmare, Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth (the fifth biggest grossing documentary ever), Erwin Wagenhofer's We feed the World, and Home by Yann-Arthus Bertrand. As La Croixreports, "over the last five years, documentaries on environmental issues are increasingly prevalent in the cinema." However, only a few big hitters have managed to achieve a box-office success in the genre. In the words of a environmental cinema festival organizer quoted by La Croix, "This type of film is usually confined to niche market: if your name is not Al Gore, Nicolas Hulot or Yann Arthus-Bertrand, you'd better be original!"

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