Having lived through decades of stagnant government response to sedate climate change protests, Climate Defiance and founder/executive director Michael Greenberg pivot toward a different tack. This organization of young activists weasels their way into business conferences and crashes public and private events in order to nonviolently — but often wildly confrontationally — denounce the fossil fuel CEOs and politicians under the industry’s influence. Taking cues from the shock civil disobedience strategies of prior direct-action movements, they aim to make these contentious and viral engagements impossible for today’s media ecosystem to ignore.

Directors Betsy Hershey and Emma Wall provide a fascinating examination of Greenberg and his fellow young organizers’ planning, execution and rationale for these radical events, highlighting the activists’ humor, desperation, creativity, fallibility, and resiliency despite an ever-shrinking window to prevent the worst. Amplified by a contemporary soundtrack that resonates this spirit of youthful resistance, the film reflects America’s political moment at a crucial crossroad, as well as generational debates on whether eschewing comfort and politeness constitutes the most effective method to gain momentum for the issue. Here we witness Climate Defiance’s fears and hopes for the planet they soon will inherit; once the world can’t look away, might we begin to listen.—Sam Hood