Live Satellite Premiere: The Age of Stupid

14 August 2009

Media Statement: For immediate release

Hoyts Live Satellite Premiere
The Age of Stupid doors open 8.00pm 19 August Sylvia Park

Hoyts Sylvia Park will deliver a New Zealand first, and a truly thought-provoking night with the live satellite broadcast of the New Zealand & Australian premiere of The Age of Stupid eco-drama at 8.30pm Wednesday 19 August.

The simultaneous premieres, from a zero waste tent in downtown Auckland and the Sydney Theatre Company in Australian will be broadcast live onto the big screen only at Hoyts Sylvia Park.

Premiere attendees will be able to watch the celebrity green carpet arrivals live, and following the film, enjoy a live panel discussion involving the Director of the film. Franny Armstrong, and a panel of high profile speakers committed to halting global warming.

“Either we seriously tackle climate change or we wipe out most life on Earth. The future of our species and everything we have ever achieved is at stake, so it's not a tricky decision,” said The Age of Stupid’s director Franny Armstrong from Sydney.

The Age of Stupid is an ambitious drama-documentary-animation hybrid starring Oscar-nominated Pete Postlethwaite as an old man living in the devastated world of 2055, watching ‘archive’ footage from 2008 and asking: why didn’t we stop climate change while we had the chance?

Drawing together six real-life stories that illustrate very different aspects of the effects of climate change, the film has been described as the ‘more emotional sibling to the rational brother of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth.’

Or, as the News of the World described it: The Age of Stupid is a “deeply inconvenient kick up the backside."

The Auckland & Sydney events will be powered by using 100% accredited green energy as well as the use of solar panels to power the satellite broadcast trucks. Guests at the Sydney premiere will walk up a green carpet on arrival. They will be encouraged to arrive via sustainable transport. Special guests in Sydney will arrive in pedapods (bicycle taxis). Other guests will be arriving on bicycles, cycling up the green carpet into the Sydney Theatre Company where they will have access to a complimentary bike valet service.

In Auckland the premiere will be beamed into a special zero waste, solar powered tent, with the event MC’d by Oliver Driver. While that event has been sold out, people can still be part of the excitement by attending the simultaneous satellite screening at Hoyts Sylvia Park.

To create genuine interactivity and audience participation, filmgoers will be invited to text questions to put to the Australian Panel.

The Age of Stupid is being distributed by Hoyts Distribution.

Hoyts Marketing Executive Kate Stace said Hoyts was fully committed to raising awareness of the effects of climate change by screening and distributing the film.

“We encourage all businesses to recognise their carbon footprint and its impact on climate change,” said Kate Stace.

In the UK, The Age of Stupid broke the World Record for largest simultaneous premiere ever with 64 sites around the UK playing the film live, linked by satellite to a solar powered tent. The whole event emitted less than 1% of the emissions of a standard movie premiere.

Group bookings for The Age of Stupid are available by calling Hoyts Group Bookings: Charlotte Macdonald, cmcdonald@hoyts.co.nz Mobile: 021 494 838

Kate Stace said the new satellite capability now being deployed in New Zealand gave the cinema chain the ability to screen not just films, but sports and other events.

“We can also work with clients to connect corporate offices globally and enable conferences and functions, bringing together people from all around the world on to our screens with a lower carbon footprint.”

ENDS

Note to editors:

Runsheet for the Hoyts Sylvia Park screening of The Age of Stupid

• 8.15pm MC introduces night
• 8.30pm Satellite broadcast starts of stars arriving on green carpet
• 9pm Screening starts of movie
• 10.30pm Q&A Commences with stars

About the satellite broadcast
International Datacasting Corporation, (TSX:IDC) a global leader in providing advanced solutions for the distribution of broadband multimedia content via satellite, in partnership with its Australian-based distributor OmniCast, received an order from Global Vision Networks for the provision of a new digital satellite cinema network for Hoyts Cinemas in Australia and New Zealand.

Under the order IDC has supplied their high performance SuperFlex SFX4104 Pro Video multimedia satellite receivers to Global Vision for installation throughout their network for Hoyts digital satellite cinemas. The SFX4104 features dual carrier operation for both file delivery and live events, has built-in BISS decryption for ease of interfacing with Satellite News Gathering (SNG) sources, can decode both legacy MPEG2 and MPEG4 AVC (H.264) HD video and is enabled for future upgrade using Sensio™ technology for live 3D alternate content.

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Reviews from UK launch ( More at www.ageofstupid.net )

"A Deeply Inconvenient Kick Up the Backside... you won't see a more important film this year" News of the World, UK

"Bold, supremely provocative, and hugely important.... a cry from the heart as much as a roar for necessary change." - The Telegraph

"The most imaginative and dramatic assault on the institutional complacency shrouding the issue" - The Times

"Has enough attitude to power a large city... Slaps you round the face... then punches you in the stomach. " - THE SUN

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