Josh Fox is best known to audiences for his award-winning documentary film Gasland, nominated for an Oscar and earned him a prestigious Emmy award. His activism is notably focused on raising awareness about the dangers of fracking (hydraulic fracturing), recognized both within the U.S. and globally. Besides Gasland, Fox is the author of the films How To Let Go of the World And Love All the Things Climate Can’t Change and Awake: A Dream from Standing Rock.
In the first episode of the Climate Late Night series, launched by the Green Art Incubator platform, Fox spoke about the crisis of trust in science as an issue that has preoccupied the climate community for decades, his motivation for addressing environmental topics, and the devastating impact of climate change on nature and individuals health. He also shared important lessons and experiences he gained through various fields of artistic and activist engagement.
I think I’ve always been an activist – from early childhood. As a kid, I put up Save the Whales posters around the building where I lived. When I was 17, I joined the Act Up coalition, which aimed to improve the living and medical conditions of people with HIV. Working in theater was very significant for me because that’s where I understood what justice is. From Greek tragedies and Shakespeare to Arthur Miller – these plays taught me the importance of justice. Theater is a search for justice; drama is a search for justice. What you present to the audience in theater or film has the power to change viewers and their consciousness. Every great art includes current political reflections of its time. Hamlet directly referred to the current political moment Shakespeare lived in. We can recall numerous other examples. If we exclude political context – the work is no longer as revolutionary, no longer as significant, and then we cannot talk about great art. In current American production – in film or television, there is a noticeable lack of political context. Authors pretend they don’t live in the world they live in. That really annoys me.
Josh Fox spoke about the making of the award-winning documentary film Gasland:
This film was made without money. I drove all over the country and slept in a van or on the couches of people I didn’t know. The budget for the film wasn’t even $3,000. Before that, I worked in theater for over ten years on large projects involving many people, so I had experience and contacts that were crucial at times for developing this project. Matt Sanchez and I sent the film to the Sundance Festival thinking maybe someone would watch it, who knows. They immediately called us and said they were interested, asking us to send more material because we didn’t have a finished film – we sent what we had. We finished the film the night before its screening at Sundance. I remember going to numerous glamorous Hollywood parties at the festival. We talked to all these stars about the problems of fracking, and they looked at me with surprise, wondering who I was and what I was talking about. I knew they weren’t interested. After ten days at Sundance, driving from one screening to another, I heard all these people explaining fracking to each other. We couldn’t believe what we were witnessing. That’s when I thought – we made it.
The interview is available on our YouTube channel and the Climate Late Night page.
