Recipes for Disaster boosts the global climate consciousness

John Webster´s documentary participates in the climate campaigns of Ireland and Goethe-Institut

Tens of millions of Americans have seen the film on TV

The feature-length documentary Recipes for Disaster (Katastrofin aineksia) by John Webster is taking the world by storm, and not just in the film circles. The film is very topical in relation to the global climate change discussion: in it director Webster convinces his wife and two small children that the whole family should go on an oil diet, yet without having to give up their a middle class suburban lifestyle. All the everyday things that we don´t do, or that we can´t help doing, make up recipes for disaster.

Eamon Ryan, Ireland´s Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources has invited the film to be screened at three events in Ireland, the purpose of which is to raise general awareness of the significance of the upcoming Copenhagen climate conference. Recipes for Disaster will be screened in Ireland at the Green Screen tour of films about climate change, arranged in a number of locations around the country, as well as in Dundrum Cinema in Dublin for guests invited by the minister and at an outdoor venue in Dublin City Centre.

Goethe-Institut, the Federal Republic of Germany´s cultural institution, is organizing a world wide campaign to provide information on climate change, and Recipes for Disaster has exceptionally been invited to participate, even though it is a non-German speaking film. Goethe-Institut has 134 offices around the world.

In the US, Recipes for Disaster was broadcasted four times in November on Discovery´s Planet Green channel, a pay TV with 46 Million subscriptions by US households. Recipes for Disaster was part of the programme of the channel´s Reel Impact: Environmental Documentary Series which has earlier presented such acclaimed environmental documentaries as An Inconvenient Truth, The 11th Hour, Who Killed the Electric Car and Sea Change.

Recipes for Disaster has so far been sold to Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, France and French speaking Africa, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK and the US. It has been screened at over 30 international festivals, and during the first half of 2009 it was travelling at festivals more frequently than any other Finnish film. In February 2010, Recipes for Disaster will represent Finland at EU´s The Windows to Europe film festival tour in Australia and New Zealand.

Recipes for Disaster has been awarded at festivals in Armenia, Italy, Poland, South Korea and Sweden. In Finland it has won the Jussi Award of the Best Documentary 2008.

The producer of Recipes for Disaster is Kristiina Pervilä / Millennium Film Oy, international sales are handled by Deckert Distribution (Germany). National distributors in Canada, Italy, Poland, Spain and the US handle DVD, cinema and other distribution in their respective countries.

Further information:

Producer Kristiina Pervilä, tel. +358 13 5110 101 / mob. +358 50 5110 740, kristiina.pervila@millennium.fi

Information Officer at the Finnish Film Foundation Satu Elo, tel. +358 9 6220 3020, satu.elo@ses.fi