Today, like a ship entering the storm, industrial civilization faces the first symptoms of energy depletion and climate change induced collapse as scientists assert that the opportunity to prevent catastrophic climate change has passed. Are some ways of collapsing better than others? Once You Know takes viewers on an intimate trek across the abyss of a world at the edge of catastrophe, into the intersection of climate science and civil disobedience.
Connected to the natural world at an early age, Director Emmanuel Cappellin's worldview is shaken while traveling aboard a giant container ship to Asia, leaving him obsessed with how to best respond personally and collectively to the planet's existential crisis. Trapped at sea with 18,000 containers, his mind spins as he calculates the millions of goods and billions of economic transactions that will take place across the planet just from this one vessel, a cornerstone of the global growth machine responsible for altering the world's climate. Panic attacks take hold of him, and visions of apocalypse flash before his eyes.
This visceral experience becomes a turning point in Cappellin's life as he ponders how climate and energy scientists manage to face similar visions on a daily basis. His quest takes him around the world to meet five of the world's leading climate scientists and energy experts who have coined a new field of study: "collapsology". They share with him the truth, chaos, and hope in their work and allow him to challenge everything he took for granted — from growth-based democracies to personal freedoms.
This odyssey brings him back to himself and to Saillans, a small Alpine mountain village he calls home. In this life-size, open sky laboratory, where everything becomes once again possible: having a child, redefining questions of social justice, implementing participatory democracy, starting an energy transition...The first steps, perhaps, towards some kind of collective resilience.
Once You Know offers a unique perspective, both personal and universal, that re-contextualizes the climate problem as not something approaching, but something already here, and charts out how we can best live in this new paradigm while attempting to mitigate its worst effects.
"STARRED REVIEW. The film, poetically narrated by Cappelin in English and stylishly filmed, has a grim message. An eye-opening reminder that future generations will face the consequences of today's actions, and that we each need to do the right thing." — Booklist
"Takes a different approach and seeks to prepare viewers for how their lives will need to change if they are to adapt to the inevitable collapse of our current way of life...Well-made and presents a unique perspective about the future with climate change. The film's message is that it is better to know and accept now that we will need to have limits on our lifestyles in the future...Highly recommended for courses in environmental studies." — Educational Media Reviews Online
"Extraordinary and necessary film. A poetic journey into the teeth of collapse that leaves us with one question: how will I comport myself during this time?" — Dahr Jamail, author of The End of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the path of Climate Disruption
"A triumph. With rare aesthetic taste, it delivers the facts about our accelerating climate chaos with an almost tender respect for those of us confronting the crisis. Unforgettable portraits of climate leaders in Bangladesh, France, and the US, help make our own choices clear. They leave me feeling inspired to lead a life that is relevant to this global movement." — Joanna Macy, featured in A Wild Love for the World: Joanna Macy and the Work of Our Time
"A loving, beautifully crafted, deeply evocative film, if one can use those words to describe the poetic personal journey of Emmanuel Cappellin through his fear of inevitable global ecological collapse and chaos to his belief that only a vision of local, community resilience and a transition to new ways of living, creating, and organizing can save us. For those of us working on the edge of this collapse and hopefully this transition, once you know you can never unknow. You can only act." — Peter Gleick, Scientist, Co-Founder of the Pacific Institute
"A beautiful, heart-breaking, and ultimately affirming journey into the grim future we all face. Once You Know confronts our global trajectory of ecological and civilizational collapse and doesn't flinch or reach for false hope, but helps find a way to live with a truth we cannot unsee." — Roy Scranton, Author of Total Mobilization: World War II and American Literature
"Cappellin doesn't mean to overcome all of the consequences of climate change. He, like many experts, concedes that it may very well be too late to stave off economic disaster and a collapse of global exchanges due to energy depletion. Instead, his film focuses on our collective ability to confront the challenges ahead and adapt by turning to one another for support...It is a powerful narrative that takes us on a journey around the globe." — Resilience.org
"An inspiring documentary, with a stimulating subject, with magnificent images...A deep and powerful reflection on collapse" — Profession Spectacle
"Exposes the vertiginous gigantism of the consumer society and its inexorable decline. In response, the director tries to identify the new narratives that emerge and that attempt to explain the challenges facing humanity...Tells the story of the author's intellectual development, from the moment when he realizes the fragility of our society and the possibility that we have passed points of no return, suggesting the possibility of global collapse." — Mr Mondialisation
"A film that encourages awareness...In this committed documentary film, the director sets out to meet 5 major climate and energy specialists to understand how to live and think about the future in the face of energy depletion and climatic runaway...The film is a great entry point that lays the foundations for a complex reflection on the energy transition and the urgent realities of the planetary situation." — PositivR
"An excellent way to accompany your own inner journey" — Jacques Tiberi, EscapetheCity
"Inspired by an apocalyptic sea crossing on a container ship, he sought out climate experts to learn how to stay hopeful in a world on the brink and best bring about change to try to save this rock we call home." — NZ Herald
"Intimately portrays four international figures in the fight against climate change...Another documentary with a bittersweet flavor. Sweet for very careful photography and extraordinary landscapes; and sour for the conviction it conveys: that much will be lost in the coming decades if we do not react in time, as individuals and as a society." — El Pais
