Spiegel Online

translation – original article

  • Environmental Documentary: “The 4th Revolution”
    The energy turning point has never looked so good

By Daniel Boese

No oil, no coal, no nuclear energy – the motion picture, “The 4th Revolution,” shows how the world can get by with renewable energy alone. The financing of the documentary is also spectacular: Rather than conducting film promotions, more than 150 companies and private individuals raised the necessary funds.

Let’s be honest, does anyone really want to see a cinematic filming of the non-fiction book “Energy Autonomy” by the SPD-politician Hermann Scheer?

The documentary filmmaker, Carl Fechner, was certain: This is something people not only want to see; they must see it.

Approximately 150 supporters were of the same opinion; donors from solar companies to the publisher of art books and the Waldorf school of Hamburg Nienstedten contributed a total of 1.25 million euros thus enabling Fechner to make his film about the maximum expansion of renewable energies. After four years of preparation, the film will be showing in cinemas this Thursday. Its bold title: “The 4th Revolution.”

“People want answers and they want vision,” Fechner explains to the multitude of supporters. The 56-year old is not the first to bring the climate movement and cinema together. Oscar winner Al Gore personally trained over 3,000 volunteers, who spread the word about “An Inconvenient Truth” around the world. The British woman, Franny Armstrong, also partially financed her apocalyptic documentary drama, “Age of Stupid,” through a donation campaign.

However, “The 4th Revolution” remains unique: it is the first film that truly has a positive answer to the threats of climate change. Large solar power plants, networked wind parks, combined heat and power units, solar units in rural Africa: through these projects, humanity would be able to abandon oil, coal and nuclear energy within three decades and still prosper. According to Fechner, this would then be the fourth globaltechnical realignment after the industrial, agricultural and digital revolution.

Fechner’s idea for the film was birthed during a conversation with Hermann Scheer. The Alternative Nobel Prize winner was telling him about his new book, “Energy Autonomy,” in which he described how the world could be powered with the use of renewable energies alone. At first it sounded like the message, which Scheer, the environmental warhorse, had been giving the world for 30 years. But Fechner realized that something had changed. What had seemed utopian for so long has long since become technically possible today. The only decisive factor is that there are people who will also implement the technologies. If one were to accompany these people from around the world, while showing their passion and their struggles, then this non-fiction book could yield an enthralling drama.

Entrepreneur from the German Palatinate meets Indian Nobel Prize winner

Initially, this idea was transformed into a website. Fechner collected money from domestic and foreign sponsors via http://www.energyautonomy.org. The principle is “crowd funding” – together many people finance what one person alone cannot accomplish. For 1000 euros one could become a “supporter.” This meant being mentioned in the credits and on the website as well as receiving 50 DVDs of the finished film. Numerous solar unit installers as well as Bündnis 90/The Green Party and the BUND participated in this fashion. However, it was mainly private individuals who donated money. When the global climate summit in Poznan only produced a stalemate in December 2008, Fechner had collected 1.25 million euros and could begin filming.

One of the protagonists in “The 4th Revolution” is Matthias Willenbacher, an entrepreneur from Rhineland-Palatinate. With a donation of 550,000 euros he is also one of the largest film sponsors. “The first bank advisor to speak with me sent me back home again,” the 40-year old relates. The company he founded, “Juwi,” builds equipment for renewable energies around the world; in 2009 their turnover was 600 million euros. The first conversation between Fechner and Willenbacher lasted three hours rather than the one-hour meeting to which they had agreed. They had actually only wanted to speak about film production, but they ended up conversing about casting. Fechner was still in search of a young, dynamic entrepreneur. He found that character in Willenbacher, who thus found himself rubbing shoulders with the Nobel Prize winners, Mohammad Yunus and Bianca Jagger, in a film he had actually only intended to co-finance.

The blending of financier and film hero is not altogether fortunate, but Fechner handles it offensively: In the credits on the website, Juwi is clearly listed as the main sponsor. “Any exertion of influence on the content of the film by the financier was contractually barred before finalization of collaboration,” Fechner emphasizes. There may not have even been any issues: what counts for Fechner is a clear advocacy of renewable energies.

Even Hermann Scheer is not annoying

This involvement is also grounded in Fechner’s life story. His first professional successes as a documentary filmmaker were during the Gulf War in 1990/91. He travelled independently in Iraq on his own initiative. “At home I have 10,000 hours of archive material from the war,” the wiry director says. “Awful, hours of photographs of dead children.” He lived first-hand the violence resulting from the dependence on oil: “We produced the human face of war for German television.” He could have continued on this path by filming conflicts from the Balkans and Rwanda. Instead he chose to break out of this part of the media system and to convey solutions through his films.

Because the roles are very clearly demarcated for Fechner, “The 4th Revolution” is very predictable to some degree: Fatih Birol, the head of economics for the international energy agency is the antagonist. With an air of “benignly opulent power,” as Fechner describes it, Birol explains tenaciously why coal and nuclear energy will continue to be necessary. At the same time, however, Fechner follows the pioneers of the 4th revolution around the world – to Denmark, Mali, Bangladesh and China.

The fact that he does not fall into the propaganda trap by producing agitprop, is partly thanks to the protagonists, who make the essential components of global energy production accessible to the layperson. Even the SPD-veteran Hermann Scheer does not come across as an annoying know-it-all but rather shines as an illuminator. In addition, the emotional sound track and the dramatic images carry the film. Fechner even has the courage to stage the meeting between the New Zealand battery expertand the Danish wind power pioneer like in a thriller: quick steps, an encounter at a lonely crossroads – when has ecology ever looked so good?

“It is a film birthed out of the movement for the movement,” says Fechner. His supporters have printed the event handbook and organized events in over one hundred cities: regional premiers with the mayor, bicycle rallies, panel discussions. The calculation is as follows: Those who collect hundreds of thousands of euros will also bring friends and family to the cinema. It is certainly possible that this film will in fact start a revolution. At least the slogan “100 Percent Renewables” has the potential to replace “Nuclear Power – No Thank You” or “100 – For the Sake of the Forest” and become the new classic of the environmental movement.