Screened as part of NZIFF 2011

Windfall 2010

Directed by Laura Israel

The arguments for and against wind turbine power rage through a small rural community in this illuminating saga. “An absorbing, sobering documentary about the lures and perils of green technology.” — The Washington Post

USA In English
83 minutes

Director

Producers

Autumn Tarleton
,
Laura Israel

Photography

Brian Jackson

Editors

Laura Israel
,
Stacey Foster
,
Alex Bingham

Music

Wade Schuman
,
Hazmat Modine

Festivals

Toronto, Vancouver 2010

Elsewhere

You don’t have to look far to see wind turbine power trumpeted as the clean, green energy solution. Around the world, energy companies are encouraged by government subsidies to invest in wind power. The arguments against this scenario rage through a small upstate New York community in this tense, illuminating saga. Land-holding farmers feeling the pinch welcome the cash offered by power companies to erect windmills on their properties. But townies, many of them lifestyle refugees from the city, aren’t so sure they want to live in the shadows of 130-metre towers with seven-ton blades spinning at 150 miles per hour. The environmental impact is undeniable: the strobing, the incessant noise, the destruction of bird life. Filmmaker Laura Israel watches the opposing groups fight it out at local council level as alternative energy becomes the community’s defining political issue. Their increasingly acrimonious struggle is a textbook microcosm of the nexus of money, politics and misinformation determining all our energy choices. — BG