When I first saw a promo-photo for this movie, I thought it would be a sci-fi space opera and I crossed it off my to-watch list. I don’t really know why, because I’m not averse to sci-fi space operas. The movie had been screening for ages and I’d been ignoring it, expecting it to finish soon. Then the cinema had a $6 special to see it and I had a feeling I should at least read the promo-blurb and find out why the movie had been given such a long run.

I’m glad I did, because everything the promo-blurb says is true.

David Gameau’s premise is that we are only renting the earth and that ‘We have everything we need right now.’ Using the device of imagining what the world would be like in 2040 for his young daughter, Velvet, he takes viewers on a thought-provoking, imaginative and ultimately moving journey of what our future would be like if we implemented planet-saving technology now. The task he sets himself is to only focus on solutions that already exist, calling the movie, ‘An exercise in fact-based dreaming.’

He covers renewable energy and how solutions can be implemented at a micro-level to benefit local communities, solutions for sequestering carbon, how regenerative agriculture could work on larger scales to imitate cycles from nature, on-demand transport, and what can be done with waste.

He also presents horrific facts about the effects of global warming and the equally horrendous sums of money governments spend per minute subsidising fossil fuels instead of investing in saving the planet.

Threaded throughout the movie are children expressing their hopes and visions of the future. Some hopes are fun, like propulsive boots capable of transporting the wearer wherever they want to go, but other hopes are more serious. The children don’t want the earth to be destroyed. They want our planet to be a living home for everyone.

Some of this information I already knew, but much of it was new to me. The technology just needs to be implemented now. This movie needs to be watched. It’s not sci-fi.