Pandora's Promise

With some films, you just know they are going to play a prominent role in the public debate. is such a film, casting a highly revealing light on perhaps the biggest issue of the moment: the future of our energy supplies. This film is a fervent argument for nuclear power from an unexpected corner, featuring testimony from environment gurus and former anti-nuclear campaigners such as Mark Lynas and Stewart Brand. Filmmaker Robert Stone, who made his debut at the end of the 1980s with the alarming documentary , about the American atomic tests in the Marshall Islands, has created a film report of their "conversion": how they came to question the traditional viewpoint of the green movement in relation to atomic power, and arrived at the conclusion that nuclear power offers a hopeful perspective of a future free from fossil fuels. Cynically enough, this ideal has been pushed further and further off the agenda during decades of climate activism. Stylistically, the documentary joins the rhetorical tradition of films such as and . convincingly refutes a number of assumptions about nuclear power, while sketching out an optimistic picture of a clean nuclear future. This film is sure to fuel the discussion of global energy policy for a long time to come.