I AM GRETA FOOTAGE DROPS: The first footage of the hotly anticipated Hulu documentary I Am Greta, about climate activist Greta Thunberg, has dropped. The film bows at the Venice Film Festival this week, and will also play at the Toronto Film Festival. Director Nathan Grossman follows Thunberg, who has Asperger’s, from her one-person strike in Sweden to her rise to global inspiration. Thunberg, who is unable to be in Venice because she has returned to school and doesn’t fly on planes, said: “I really like the film and I think it gives a realistic image of myself and my daily life. I hope anyone who watches the film can finally understand that we young people aren’t school-striking just for fun. We are protesting because we don’t have a choice. A lot has of course happened since I started school-striking, but sadly we are still stuck on square one. The changes and the level of awareness needed are nowhere to be seen today. All that we ask for is for our society to treat the climate crisis as a crisis, and give us a safe future. I think the film shows just how far that is from happening right now. It shows that the urgency of the scientific message isn’t getting through.”
VENICE FILM FESTIVAL KICKS OFF: A seriously scaled down version of the Venice Film Festival launched Tuesday, with director Alberto Barbero sounding a hopeful tone. He told Reuters of the festival, which runs September 2-12th: “We think that it's time to restart for cinema. We need to reopen the theatres. We need to distribute new films. We need to start shooting new films again and I hope that the festival will be a sign of solidarity and encouragement for everybody involved with the film industry.” Among the stars making the trek to Italy are Cate Blanchett, who leads the jury, Matt Dillon, Pedro Almodovar and Tilda Swinton.
JURASSIC WORLD TRAILER RELEASED: Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous, the Netflix CG animated series has released its first trailer. The show follows a group of six teens trapped at an adventure camp on Isla Nublar. Steven Spielberg is producing with Paul-Mikél Williams voicing Darius, Jenna Ortega as Brooklynn, Ryan Potter as Kenji, Raini Rodriguez as Sammy, Sean Giambrone as Ben, Kausar Mohammed as Yaz, Jameela Jamil as Roxie, and Glen Powell as Dave.
THREE-BODY PROBLEM SET: Netflix has ordered a drama series based on the hit Chinese book series The Three-Body Problem, with David Benioff, DB Weiss and Alexander Woo on board to write and produce. The trilogy, written by Liu Cixin, tells the story of humanity’s contact with aliens. “Liu Cixin’s trilogy is the most ambitious science-fiction series we’ve read, taking readers on a journey from the 1960s until the end of time, from life on our pale blue dot to the distant fringes of the universe,” Benioff and Weiss said. “We look forward to spending the next years of our lives bringing this to life for audiences around the world.”
