Director vows new film will tackle Gasland
The director of a new documentary that aims to show the positive impact of the US shale boom has said he was motivated by a row with the director of anti-fracking movie Gasland.
Phelim McAleer told Upstream that Josh Fox, director of the controversial documentary, tried to silence his criticism of Gasland by having a video featuring the pair removed from YouTube. (View the video here.)
“It was Josh Fox trying to bully me that motivated me to make FrackNation,” McAleer said. “He tried to censor my journalism by getting my video removed from YouTube.”
In the video, McAleer questions Fox at a lecture about how the documentary did not mention the presence of methane gas in public water supply decades before hydraulic fracturing, a fact which Fox insisted was not relevant.
“I saw a need for some real journalism to expose the misrepresentations that are so prevalent about fracking,” he added.
McAleer and fellow documentarist Ann McElhinney launched the FrackNation project as a crowd-funded documentary, whereby the cost of making the film is funded by online donations.
Earlier this week, FrackNation’s funding campaign passed its target minimum of $150,000 in less than half the expected time.
The documentary has now received more than $165,000 from almost 2400 people donating an average of $20 to $35 each.
McAleer said that he had not accepted any donations from the oil and gas industry.
“It is very important not to accept industry donations or donations from executives. We want to be completely independent and tell ordinary people’s stories,” the director said. This is a documentary for the people funded by the people.”
“No one really knows where Josh Fox got his money for Gasland,” McAleer added. “Unlike Gasland our funding is transparent.”
The Northern Irish director admitted he was likely to receive flak from environmental lobby groups over FrackNation, as with the last two documentaries he made with compatriot McElhinney.
Both 2009’s Not Evil Just Wrong about the basis of the global warming debate and 2006’s Mine Your Own Business that investigated the environmental movement itself came in for heavy criticism from green groups.
“I hope they will engage in debate and not try to censor us but unfortunately they always seem to want to close down alternative points of view not engage in debates,” McAleer said. “They are elitist and don't want to hear what ordinary people have to say.”
