“Nuclear Now”, a pro-nuclear energy documentary from Academy Award winner Oliver Stone will open in the USA and Canada in April after Abramorama and Giant Pictures acquired North American rights to the film, which premiered at last year’s Venice Film Festival.
The film is based on Professor Joshua S. Goldstein’s book, “A Bright Future”, which makes the case for nuclear power as a vital energy solution in the face of climate change. Stone made use of unprecedented access to the nuclear industries of France, Russia and the USA.
Stone told Deadline that “climate change has brutally forced us to take a new look at the ways in which we generate energy as a global community”. He added: “Long regarded as dangerous in popular culture, nuclear power is in fact hundreds of times safer than fossil fuels and accidents are extremely rare. This is, in my mind, the greatest story of our time, discussing humanity’s arc from poverty to prosperity and its mastery of science to overcome the modern demand for more and more energy.”
In the trailer to the film, Stone says: “We’ve been trained from the very beginning to fear nuclear power. The very thing that we fear is what may save us.” The film points out that, “in the mid 20th century as societies began the transition to nuclear power and away from fossil fuels, a long-term PR campaign to scare the public began, funded in part by coal and oil interests”. This campaign would sow fear about harmless low-level radiation and create confusion between nuclear weapons and nuclear power.”
Stone warns in the trailer: “We may have come to a point in time when the Earth is asking us: ‘Do you know what you are doing?’… We’ve run out of time to be afraid.”
Image: Oliver Stone (courtesy of Michael Campanella/WireImage)
