THE GIANTS is a long overdue biopic of environmentalist Bob Brown, a National Living Treasure, the first openly gay member of parliament in Australia and leader of the world’s first Green party. It’s also about the life of Trees, which scientists are only starting to understand. The film goes from Bob story to the trees’ story - revealing just how closely intertwined they are. It’s a joyous exploration of the Forest delivered in a new, creative and awe-inspiring way.
Brown’s trailblazing life helps narrate the exhilarating rise of the environmental movement in Australia from the successful Franklin River campaign in 1983. The film is a poetic exploration of his motivations and his actions that began, like Greta Thunberg, with a few lone acts of protest; and of his spiritual connection to wilderness that continues to sustain him.
Fast-forward to today and Australia is sleepwalking into deforestation – it has the highest rate of land clearing in the developed world, on par with Brazil. THE GIANTS wants to wake us up!
In the battle for the Franklin, Bob Brown’s collaboration with leading Tasmanian photographer Peter Dombrovskis proved decisive in capturing the public’s imagination and inspiring them into action. THE GIANTS will follow the same tactic – we will create an epic portrait of the Forest that combines monumental ‘tree portraits’ and immersive, animated ‘3D forest scans’ with spine-tingling sound design and a powerful soundtrack featuring human vocals – to literally give a voice to these trees.
Did you know trees talk to each other? That forests have nurseries and that ‘mother’ trees feed their young? THE GIANTS will popularize recent ground-breaking research to reveal the Forest as a complex, intelligent, mass-scale living creature.
Brought to you by the team that made FREEMAN – the most watched documentary of 2020 on Australian TV, THE GIANTS aims to ignite a conversation about the right of the Forest to exist – and to inspire us to save it.
