HAPPY EARTH DAY TO YOU!!!!
The green film the world has been waiting for on DVD was finally released today for pre-sale. The Green Chain DVD is now available directly from the distributor, Kinosmith.
The movie is packed full of special features — a commentary track by writer-director Mark Leiren-Young; two music videos by Local Anxiety — including their performance of the movie’s title song, two behind the scenes documentaries featuring conversations with stars Tricia Helfer, August Schellenberg, Scott McNeil and Leo Award Winner, Jillian Fargey and a dozen audio interviews with eco experts.
Order BEFORE the movie hits the stores on June 8th and you can receive a special 35% discount!
Just enter the code: “GREENCHAIN2010″ to receive the special price.
Here’s the full list of the eco-interviews — which were originally conducted by Mark Leiren-Young for his podcast series on thetyee.ca – author George Bowering; activist Betty Krawczyk; Ancient Forest Alliance founder Ken Wu; filmmaker, Velcrow Ripper; climate scientist Dr. Richard Hebda; Adbusters magazine founder Kalle Lasn; PowerUp Canada and Forest Ethics founder Tzeporah Berman; eco-authors Alan Drengson and Duncan Taylor; Forest Stewardship Council of Canada boss Antony Marcil; author of The Golden Spruce John Vaillant; former union spokesman Wade Fisher and treeplanting author Charlotte Gill.
Many of the interviews are also featured in Mark’s new book from Heritage House, The Green Chain — Nothing is Ever Clear Cut.

Time to tune in. The Green Chain is coming to the small screen this month with the world television premiere on Movie Central October 11th. The eastern Canadian TV premiere is Oct 17th in prime time at 9 pm on TMN. Click on the links to check out our other air times.

TMN and Movie Central were instrumental in bringing The Green Chain to life.

I can’t believe how long it has taken to write these words …

And now I can’t believe how soon it’s happening.

The Green Chain premieres March 6th at The 5th Avenue Cinemas in Vancouver.

This movie was born in 1985 when I interviewed a logger in Williams Lake, BC about his new “mill on wheels” and how it did the work of an entire crew, and how it was too bad the damn environmentalists were responsible for putting so many of his friends out of work.

Six years later, in the granite bunker that is the CBC basement, John Juliani and I started talking about telling that story and at least four more as a collection of monologues that John referred to as, “a string of pearls.”

John and I spent the next dozen years looking for ways to bring our string of wooden pearls to life.

In 2004, a year after John passed away, I finally wrote the script for The Green Chain, handed it to Donna Wong-Juliani, and told her that no one in the world would be crazy enough to do this with her husband gone, but I’d always promised I’d write it for him. She told me she was crazy enough to do it, that we’d make a movie and I’d direct it. Tony Wosk said he was crazy enough too.  And in September, 2005, Brendan Fletcher climbed fifty feet up a tree and we were really making a movie.

And “we” is a very long list… It’s tough to imagine a smaller film. Seven cast members. Seven shooting days. But once you get through the magic and madness of post production, I suspect it still took about 100 people to bring it to life and that’s not counting the friends and friends of friends and friendly strangers who helped get this movie to the point where it’s on the big screen.

So… congratulations to everyone who brought this to life.

Thank you… to everyone who helped us climb this tree…

And now it’s time to tell the world… or at least all of Vancouver… to show up at The 5th Avenue the weekend of March 6th.

I’m planning to intro every screening for our first weekend.  We’ll have q&a sessions with me, with the cast and with special guests from the environmental community.

Tell all your friends, tell all your enemies, tell strangers. Invite people to join our Facebook site. Invite people to join the MySpace site. Invite them to subscribe to our blog.

But mostly… invite them to the movie that first weekend when the future of our movie is determined by how many people buy tickets.

Tickets will be on sale March 3rd and we’ll add a sales link as soon as it’s available.

See you at The 5th Avenue.

Mark