BY MILES PROUST

A documentary centring on last year’s historic School Strike 4 Climate protests, involving more than 300,000 Australians, is set to be released this month.

Directed by filmmaker and 360 Degrees founder Sally Ingleton, Wild Things follows the School Strike 4 Climate, Stop Adani and Save the Tarkine protests around Australia. 

The film also takes viewers through Australia’s rich history of environmental activism by revisiting the Franklin River and Jabiluka protests from the 1980s and 90s.  

“I really wanted to show young people that this country has a history of strong environmental action,” Ms Ingleton said.

The documentary features prominent activists including Dr Lisa Searle, known for staging logging protests in Tasmania, and Harriet O’Shea, a 16-year-old Victorian student protester who was invited to the United Nations Youth Climate Summit in New York last year. 

Ms O’Shea, known for organising student climate strikes in Castlemaine and Melbourne, said attending the Youth Climate Summit was an amazing experience. 

“It’s really easy to feel you are in the minority when it comes to climate action, but going to the summit made me realise how many people do care and how many people are willing to make sacrifices for climate action,” Ms O’Shea said. 

Ms O’Shea said she hopes people will change their behaviour after watching the documentary.

“I think not believing in climate science is just so selfish and I don’t understand how people could do it. It’s not just my future but everyone’s future who is at risk,” she said. 

For more than a decade, Ms Ingleton said she wanted to make a film about Australia’s environmental movements but had struggled to secure financing.

“In the last five years, there’s been a surge of feature docos that have been made in Australia on all sorts of issues, but particular social impact stories, and suddenly there looked like there was a path to making and financing a film,” she said.

The film made its debut at Western Australia’s CinefestOZ Film Festival and is being released in conjunction with a fundraiser, so it can have broader reach. 

“Promoting films is really expensive so that’s why we are running the fundraiser so we can get it out to as many people as possible,” Ms Ingleton said.  

The filmmaker said she hopes a new generation of grassroots activists can be inspired by the documentary. 

“That’s why we want the film to get out there to regional communities, to schools and with action-based resources to help young people feel inspired for social change and so they feel they can do something about climate change,” she said.

“We would love to do a screening at Monash University.”

As of November 6, the fundraiser has raised $119,000 of its $130,000 goal.

You can find out more about the film or donate here. 

You can watch the trailer here.