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“To the End” begins with the following quote: “The old world is dying, and the new world cannot quite be born. In the meantime, all kinds of dreadful things are happening.” Though these words may sound to many as if they were expressed yesterday, they’re from Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci, who wrote them in 1930.

Gramsci studied the ways in which political elites exploited ideology to institutionalize and retain power, which makes him a particularly apt touchstone for filmmaker Rachel Lears. Lears has come to specialize in verité documentaries about young and disenfranchised activists, motivated against long odds to challenge the establishment. Her last film, the often-thrilling “Knock Down the House,” followed the 2018 campaigns of four aspiring congressional representatives, led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The latter is also featured in “To the End,” which tracks the anxieties and efforts of several young advocates as they aim to focus attention toward the...

"Now is the time to leverage our power." Roadside Attractions has revealed their trailer for the rousing new political documentary film To The End, which originally premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. This doc is the highly anticipated follow-up to the Aoc doc Knock Down the House from a few years ago, also focusing on young female politicians in the United States. Stopping the climate crisis is a question of political courage, and the clock is ticking. Filmed over four years of hope and crisis, To The End captures the emergence of a new generation of leaders and the movement behind the most sweeping climate change legislation in U.S. history - the "Green New Deal". Award-winning director Rachel Lears follows four exceptional young women—Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, activist Varshini Prakash, climate policy writer Rhiana Gunn-Wright, political strategist Alexandra Rojas— as they fight to shift the narrative around climate,...

Exclusive: The trailer to Rachel Lears’ new documentary To the End debuts on over one thousand screens in theaters today, but we’ve got your first look at it here.

Lears’ follow-up to her breakthrough film Knock Down the House documents young progressive activists and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in their relentless effort to engineer major action combatting climate change.

“Fighting for change politically requires faith,” Aoc says in the trailer. Regarding the urgent need to avoid a climate catastrophe, Ocasio-Cortez notes, “This is going to be the moon shot of our generation.”

To the End was acquired by Roadside Attractions after its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival last January. The version of the documentary that hits theaters on December 9 has been significantly revised since Sundance, to reflect dramatic changes in the political fortunes of climate change legislation.

“When the film premiered at Sundance, it was right after [Democratic] Senator...

Roadside Attractions has taken domestic rights for To The End, the follow-up film from Rachel Lears (Knock Down The House), and set a Dec. 9 theatrical-only release date.

The deal was announced by Co-Presidents Howard Cohen and Eric d’Arbeloff. The film, which premiered at Sundance, covers three years of both hope and crisis leading to the recent, historic passage of landmark climate legislation — The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.

It focuses on four exceptional women, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, on the front lines of climate policy and advocacy with up-to-the-minute material.

“We are thrilled to be releasing To The End, said Roadside VP of Acquisitions Angel An. “These are the people, four young women from diverse backgrounds, often left out of the political deal-making narrative. Yet this film makes clear how these committed activists have worked to shift the narrative on climate that led to the [Act’s] passage.”

“We always wanted this immersive...

To the End Tribeca Festival Viewpoints Reviewed for Shockya.com by Abe Friedtanzer Director: Rachel Lears Writer: Rachel Lears and Robin Blotnick Cast: Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Varshini Prakash, Alexandra Rojas, Rhiana Gunn-Wright Screened at: Village East Cinema, NYC, 4/9/22 Opens: June 12th, 2022 Climate change in today’s world has reached a disastrous point, one which many […]

The post Tribeca 2022: To the End Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

In 2019, Rachel Lears electrified Sundance with “Knock Down the House,” a fly-on-the-wall look at a group of progressive candidates hoping to ride grassroots campaigns to Washington. That film, which played like cri de coeur while the Trump administration was at the height of its power, also benefitted from capturing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez while she was still a bartender turned upstart congressional hopeful, a bit of kismet that resulted in a $10 million sale to Netflix.

Three years later, Lears returns to Sundance in a different key with “To the End.” It’s a more somber look at a group of activists who are trying to do everything possible to pressure the U.S. government to get serious about combatting the climate crisis. If “Knock Down the House” ended more triumphantly with Ocasio-Cortez being ushered in to a position of great influence, “To the End” premieres as President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda is being held in limbo,...

Unstoppable force meets immovable object in “To the End.” Rachel Lears’ documentary inspires in its portrait of youthful activists organizing to push impactful climate-change policies into American political reality — and exasperates in the resistance with which that urgent quest is greeted on both sides of the entrenched-power aisle. Covering several years of fast-moving events, this Sundance premiere is too exclusively U.S.-focused to be particularly viable for offshore programmers, but its topicality should stir sales interest on home turf.

Like the director’s last feature “Knock Down the House,” about the 2018 Congressional election, this one also throws a spotlight on New York state candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Her successful bid for a House of Representatives seat greatly encouraged other progressives, for whom she is seen now as their principal “inside” ally — as well as conservatives’ preferred target tor outrage on nearly any subject. But the principals here are a lower-profile...

Returning to similar thematic territory as her previous 2019 documentary feature, “Knock Down the House,” director Rachel Lears turns to the climate crises in her follow-up, “To the End.” Much like that previous film, Lears follows four female climate activists — Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, Sunrise Movement Executive Director Varshini Prakesh, Justice Democrats Executive Director Alexandra Rojas, and Roosevelt Institute Policy Director Rhiana Gunn-Wright — as they work to write and institute the Green New Deal.

Continue reading ‘To The End’ Review: A Scattered, Occasionally Brilliant, Rallying Cry about the Climate Crisis [Sundance] at The Playlist.

It’s hard to read the news these days, as ever-deadlier fires rage in the west and more intense hurricanes batter the Gulf Coast, and our president shrugs his shoulders and says “It’s going to get cooler, you’ll see.” Which is why it’s a small miracle that I read something about climate change recently that actually made me feel good. All We Can Save, a new anthology (out September 22nd) co-edited by Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Dr. Katharine K. Wilkinson, is a compilation of essays and...

It’s hard to bend your mind around how much is at stake in the climate crisis, much less what to do about it. But this much is clear: It’s time — way past time — to go fast, and go big. Joe Biden’s $2 trillion climate proposal, despite its shortcomings and campaign hype, gets that essential point.

If Biden is elected, there will be a lot of tough questions asked about how to make his plan a reality, especially at a time when the economy appears to be headed for...

This article was originally published by Grist and is republished here as part of an ongoing collaboration.

The period between April and December 2019 was a magical time for climate activists. The more than 20 Democratic candidates vying for the party’s nomination couldn’t stop trying to one-up each other. Candidates promised Green New Deals and millions of green jobs, initiatives to save the oceans and drilling bans on public lands. But to paraphrase Ecclesiastes, there’s a time to dream and a time to get down to business — and that...