The Unofficial Guide to Pandora's Promise, a Documentary Film About Nuclear Energy by Robert Stone (Bumped)

Updated Editor's Note: The next big date on the Pandora's Promise calendar is November 7 at 9:00 p.m. U.S. EST. That's when the film will make it's cable television debut on CNN. A crew from the cable network visited NEI a few weeks ago, and we anticipate that you'll see a number of features about the future of the nuclear energy industry air over the next several weeks. Be sure to watch on November 7, and join us on Twitter as we participate in a real-time chat about the film using the #PandorasPromise hash tag.

Editor's Note: Here at NEI, we're keeping a close eye on Pandora's Promise, a documentary film by Academy Award-nominated director Robert Stone about how many prominent environmentalists have changed their minds about nuclear energy because of concerns about climate change.  The film was produced independently from the nuclear industry. Among the financial backers of Pandora's Promise are Richard Branson and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.

As coverage of the film's debut around the world continues, I'll be collecting all of the online coverage about it in this space. Every time I make a major update to the content below, I'll bump this post back to the top of the blog. As always, our readers are an important part of this conversation, so please don't hesitate to send us links and suggestions as to how we might improve our coverage of the film.

In this guide you will find:

• Synopsis
• Official Trailer
• Where to See Pandora's Promise
• Videos
• Social Media 
  
• Bios of Film's Principals
• Reviews and Other Coverage

Synopsis (from the official web site):

Impact Partners and CNN Films present PANDORA’S PROMISE, the groundbreaking new film by Academy-Award®-nominated director Robert Stone. The atomic bomb and meltdowns like Fukushima have made nuclear power synonymous with global disaster. But what if we’ve got nuclear power wrong? An audience favorite at the Sundance Film Festival, PANDORA’S PROMISE asks whether the one technology we fear most could save our planet from a climate catastrophe, while providing the energy needed to lift billions of people in the developing world out of poverty. 

Official Trailer:



Exclusive Clip:

In this exclusive clip from Indiewire, learn how U.S. nuclear reactors are powered by fuel converted from former Russian nuclear warheads. The program is called Megatons to Megawatts.

So Where Can You See Pandora's Promise?

The film's initial theatrical run ended in June 2013. However, if you still want to see it, you can schedule a screening of your own using Tugg, a business that's a cross between Kickstarter and MovieTickets.com. If you can convince 100 friends to pay for a screening up front, Tugg will help you get the film into a participating theater. See the Pandora's Promise Tugg page for more. CNN Films announced that it had acquired cable television broadcast rights to the film. It will air on November 7, 2013 at 9:00 p.m. U.S. EST.  For the latest dates and times for screenings, consult the Pandora's Promise website.

To download a copy of the film, you'll have to wait until December 3, 2013, when Pandora's Promise will be made available on iTunes. If and when you see the film, be sure to tweet about it and include the #PandorasPromise hash tag and the official handle, @PandorasPromise.

Videos:

Q&A with Michael Moore at the Traverse City Film Festival:



Q&A at the IFC Center's Stranger Than Fiction Series (click here for additional interview):


Interview With Ondi Timoner of Bring Your Own Doc:


Robert Stone Interview with GenConnect:


BMI Sundance Composer/Director Roundtable:


Robert Stone and Mark Lynas Interviewed by Tara Hunnewell:


Mark Lynas Interview with Hedgerly Wood Trust:

 
Social Media:

Follow Pandora's Promise on Twitter and Facebook. Folks on Twitter seem to be using #PandorasPromise to organize conversations around the film. You can also subscribe to the film's YouTube Channel. If you've seen the film already, consider posting your review at the Internet Movie Database. In response to critiques of the film by anti-nuclear activists, Stone has posted his own FAQ on the film. Nick Touran, a recent Ph.D. graduate of the nuclear engineering program at the University of Michigan published a defense of the film. Here at NEI Nuclear Notes, we've created a category label for all of our coverage of the film.


Principals:

Robert Stone, Director:

Robert Stone is a multi-award-winning, Oscar-nominated and Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker. Born in England in 1958, he grew up in both Europe and America. After graduating with a degree in history from the University of Wisconsin/Madison, he moved to New York City in 1983 determined to pursue a career in filmmaking. He gained considerable recognition for his first film, “RADIO BIKINI” (1987) which premiered at Sundance and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary. Multi-tasking as a producer, director, writer, editor and cameraman, he has over the last 25 years developed a steady international reputation with a range of unique and critically acclaimed feature-documentaries about American history, pop-culture, the mass media and the environment.

Michael Shellenberger, The Breakthrough Institute:

Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger are leading global thinkers on energy, climate, security, human development, and politics. Their 2007 book Break Through was called "prescient" by Time and "the best thing to happen to environmentalism since Rachel Carson's Silent Spring" by Wired. (An excerpt in The New Republic can be read here.) Their 2004 essay, "The Death of Environmentalism," was featured on the front page of the Sunday New York Times, sparked a national debate, and inspired a generation of young environmentalists ...

Stewart Brand, Editor, The Whole Earth Catalog and Co-Chair and President of The Long Now Foundation:

Stewart Brand is co-founder and president of The Long Now Foundation and co-founder of Global Business Network. He created and edited the Whole Earth Catalog (National Book Award), and co-founded the Hackers Conference and The WELL. His books include The Clock of the Long Now; How Buildings Learn; and The Media Lab. His most recent book, titled Whole Earth Discipline, is published by Viking in the US and Atlantic in the UK. He graduated in Biology from Stanford and served as an Infantry officer.

Richard Rhodes, Author, The Making of the Atomic Bomb:

RICHARD RHODES is the author or editor of twenty-four books including The Making of the Atomic Bomb, which won a Pulitzer Prize in Nonfiction, a National Book Award and a National Book Critics Circle Award ...

Gwyneth Cravens, Author, The Power to Save the World: The Truth About Nuclear Energy:

[H]as contributed articles and op-eds on science and other topics to Harper’s Magazine, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. She has published five novels. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The New Yorker, where she also worked as a fiction editor, and in Harper’s Magazine, where she was an associate editor. She grew up in New Mexico and now lives on eastern Long Island.

Mark Lynas, Environmentalist and Climate Change Activist (also writing a companion book to the film):

[A] frequent speaker around the world on climate change science and policy, focusing in particular on how carbon neutral targets can break the international logjam on climate mitigation, and how emissions reduction should be seen as an opportunity not a sacrifice. He is also a Visiting Research Associate at Oxford University’s School of Geography and the Environment.

Reviews and Other Coverage:

Tim Wu, Slate:

A good, politically charged documentary often seizes on what the audience already believes and throws fuel on the fire (see, e.g., the work of Michael Moore). A better such documentary tries to convince its audience that what it takes for granted is flat-out wrong. Pandora’s Promise, which premiered at Sundance, does just that. It makes the utterly convincing case that anyone who considers themselves an environmentalist or takes climate change seriously should favor more nuclear power.

Kate Briemann, Rolling Stone:

After sifting through the anti-nuclear choruses and the considerably smaller pro-nuclear groups in an attempt to find the truth about the advantages and disadvantages of nuclear energy, Stone found his answer with Michael Shellberger, the president and co-founder of the Breakthrough Institute: "We can have a world living modern lives without killing the climate."

John Anderson, Variety:

Can one be committed to the environment, and still be against nuclear power? Most issue docs are propaganda, and Robert Stone’s latest is a formidable sales pitch for nukes, yet the film’s points are well reasoned and urgent, and should attract viewers who have been drawn to the director’s earlier work(such as “Earth Days,” a history of the environmentalist movement).

Kyle Smith, New York Post:

New York City filmmaker Robert Stone, like the five experts who are the principal subjects of his documentary, began with the same impeccable environment-first attitude they did. Stone was nominated for an Oscar for his 1988 anti-nukes documentary “Radio Bikini,” about the dire consequences of American bomb testing on the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. Now Stone, who will be debating Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on nuclear power at the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, NY, tomorrow night at 7:30, sheepishly admits that he confused what nuclear bombs do with what nuclear energy does. So many of our ideas about fallout and cancer rates are tied to the former, not the latter.

David Biello, Scientific American:

What has cracked that catholic opposition for Brand and others is the invisible and invidious challenge of climate change. Simply put: nuclear power is one of the few technologies available today that can produce a lot of electricity, a lot of the time without a lot of greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere.

James Conca, Forbes:

Is considering nuclear energy politically dangerous for environmentalists? Does it prevent normally-smart public servants from considering the best path forward on climate change? Indeed it is, and explains the swift and nasty response to Pandora’s Promise from anti-nuclear groups and the expected rants from professional fear-mongerers. They make some interesting fictional points, but provide no real information, using the word science like a mythological sword whose power they recognize but don’t understand.

Craig Bowron, Minneapolis Star Tribune:

As the director, Robert Stone, writes, “The almost theological adherence to a set of unquestionable beliefs [solar and wind power alone will save us] by most liberals and environmentalists has likely contributed as much or more to prolonging our addiction to fossil fuels as the equally appalling state of denial among many conservatives when it comes to climate change.”

John Gibbons, Irish Times:

What’s most likely to get us into trouble, Mark Twain observed, is not what we don’t know “it’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so”. There are few subjects on which so many people, from politicians to rock stars, NGOs and environmentalists, passionately and confidently espouse views that are so completely at variance with observed reality as nuclear energy.

Maxine Segarnick, Poughkeepsie Journal:

The film strives to debunk several nuclear myths, such as the reportedly high radiation level and death toll caused by the explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. Environmental activists continue to use Chernobyl as an example of the potential danger of nuclear development. However, the film shows a radioactivity monitor at Chernobyl, as well as at other sites in America and Europe, and demonstrates that the level of radioactivity in Chernobyl in 2012 is nearly identical to that of Central Park in New York City.

Natalie Rooney, VoxTalk:

In a world where most people think nuclear plants are dangerous, Pandora’s Promise challenges viewers to see the benefits of nuclear energy. Despite this daunting challenge, the most admirable aspect of Pandora’s Promise is director Robert Stone’s commitment to presenting both sides of the nuclear energy argument.

Lenka Kollar, ANS Nuclear Cafe:

[T]he most compelling part of the documentary is illustrating how those who actually protested against nuclear power have come to now speak in favor of it. Admitting you were wrong takes some humility and can even cost you your professional career.

Joe Bendel, Libertas:

Stone made his name with the anti-nuclear doc Radio Bikini and would further burnish his green credentials with Earth Days. Very concerned about global warming, Stone could no longer accept the environmental movement’s unrealistic claims about solar and wind power. As his primary POV experts argue, any power plan with a significant wind or solar component will by necessity be heavily dependent on big, dirty fossil fuel plants as a back-up. The simple truth is that the sun does not always shine and the wind does not always blow, but coal burns 24-7.

Stephanie Novak:

Pandora’s Promise has the immensely difficult task of changing people’s mindsets about nuclear energy—a task that became extraordinarily more difficult after the nuclear explosions at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan. Knowing that the film was in favor of nuclear energy, I was surprised that during the beginning of the documentary, arguments against nuclear energy were explained—I almost thought that I was wrong and that the film might be anti-nuclear energy. But in my opinion, this was one of the strongest points of the film. I thought that by clearly laying out reasons why people would be against nuclear energy ultimately made the film’s pro-nuclear stance stronger, as I understood arguments on both sides of the debate by the time the film finished.

Tiffany Ujiye:

Stone’s narrative includes personal stories from environmentalists and energy experts, including Stewart Brand, Gwyneth Craven, Mark Lynas, Richard Rhodes and Michael Shellenberger to speak about their journey in supporting nuclear energy. “This film is about hope,” Stone said, “but it can’t be done without nuclear power.”

Don Simpson, Smells Like Screen Spirit:

Sure, it seems pretty strange for a devout environmentalist to take a pro-nuclear energy stance; but after seeing Robert Stone’s documentary Pandora’s Promise, it seems like a perfectly logical switch.

Additional Reviews:

“CLEAR-EYED AND BALANCED… director Robert Stone introduces a cast of unlikely defenders of this awesome source of energy: environmentalists."

- Ashutosh Jogalekar, Scientific American

“COMPELLING.”

- Nick Schrager, Village Voice

"GUARANTEED-TO-BE-CONTROVERSIAL!”

- Kimberly Chun, SF Bay Guardian

“Stone’s worldly feature-length report is sure to raise eyebrows, but it paints a convincing picture.”

- Kelly Vance, East Bay Express

“INTELLIGENT AND RELATABLE… you may find yourself thoroughly surprised with an about-face view on the energy issue.”

- Lori Huck, Examiner.com

“COMPELLING… A debate worth revisiting, and only the most dogmatic will resist it.”

- Roger Moore, McClatchy-Tribune News Service

“OPEN, EARNEST, UNABASHED… it makes a persuasive case… To any viewer with an open mind, ‘Pandora’s Promise’ may help encourage fresh thinking about the huge pros, as well as the better known cons, of this important, if controversial, source of clean energy.”

- David Ropeik, Scientific American

“PROVOCATIVE and IMPORTANT… ‘Pandora’s Promise’ is essential viewing.”

- Andrew Revkin, The New York Times

"THE MOST IMPORTANT MOVIE ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT SINCE ‘AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH.’”

- Eric Zorn, Chicago Tribune

“CONTROVERSIAL… ENGAGING AND WELL-RESEARCHED… as nuanced as it is credible.”

- Anthony Kaufman, Indiewire

“ESSENTIAL VIEWING… A full dose of strong opinion – and also some much-needed facts."

- Anne Michaud, Newsday

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Pandora’s Promise in Review

Opening Reviews? Mixed, with a tilt to the positive.

Manohla Dargis in the New York Times grabbed a little harder than I did at the drubbing of Dr. Helen Calidicott got in the picture and said it showed the movie’s one-sided view of nuclear energy.

This comic divide — the strident old lady environmentalist with the apparent bad dye job (Ms. Caldicott) versus a Yoda of the modern environmental movement (Mr. Brand) — makes for quite a setup. Yet such deck-stacking in movies can also be a viewer turnoff, no matter how seemingly worthy the cause. And “Pandora’s Promise” is as stacked as advocate movies get.

The descriptions of Caldicott and Brand are pretty terrible - remind me not to get on Dargis’ bad side. I used to work in the independent film business in New York (briefly, ineffectually) and a positive review from the Times was very important to launch an independent picture. One of the companies I worked for went pear shaped after a poor NYT review.That’s not as true now as it was when Vincent Canby ruled the NYT reviewing roost in the 70s and 80s Happily, the rise of specialized theater chains such as Landmark allow worthy films such as Pandora’s Promise to open in more than one city at a time, just like Man of Steel – well, minus 12,000 screens, but still, plenty for an adequate launch.

In many of these cities, the documentary picked up exceptionally good reviews.

For example, Michael O’Sullivan at the Washington Post understands a better than Dargis that Pandora’s Promise is more an essay than a news account.

Although the documentary ultimately argues in favor of nuclear power, an energy source that’s anathema to many tree huggers, it does so in a way that’s less strenuous than strenuously ambivalent. In the end, its somewhat equivocal message — that nuclear power might just be the lesser of several evils — is more convincing than you’d think.

This is a good point to bring out. The film does not downplay issues environmentalists – including those in the movie - have had with nuclear energy. If O’Sullivan errs a bit in considering energy choices greater or lesser evils, he sees that there is an argument to made for nuclear energy. Going from “anathema” to “ambivalent” is not nothing.

A little more:

J.R. Jones in The Chicago Reader:

The pro-nuclear left grabs the bullhorn in this lively advocacy documentary, which argues that nuclear power is much less damaging to the environment than people think and, given the exponential rise in energy demand, the only credible alternative to fossil fuels.

Colin Calvert in The Minneapolis Star-Tribune:

While the film may not soothe every skeptic’s misgivings, it argues persuasively that nuke-produced electricity can be a major contributor to the needs of an energy-hungry world. Like many advocacy documentaries, it offers a one-sided argument. This time, however, it’s advanced by people who spent much of their lives on the opposite side.

There’s plenty more reviews, but the ability to quote them thins out behind pay walls – I’m sure Stone and his distributor will find them all the positive ones for the ads – but generally, the reviews are well-considered and judicious. Those that don’t like the film generally call it one-sided, following Dargis, but a lot get past simple minded views of journalistic balance to see the movie as it is, a film essay on nuclear energy.

---

Manola Dargis is a fine reviewer, but I cannot help but think that the Times in general cannot quite figure this movie out. In an odd feature article entitled Rebel Filmmaker Tilts Conservative, writer Tom Roston works with the notion that conservative documentarians have trouble getting their wares into festivals such as Sundance, yet Stone had little problem with Pandora’s Promise.

But the Sundance director, John Cooper, said, “We like films that create dialogue.” Asked whether Mr. Stone’s history — he has had three previous films at Sundance — was a factor, Mr. Cooper replied, “The credibility of a filmmaker does matter to us.”

So, clearly, Stone’s reputation preceded him – as it should – what is the point of a reputation, after all? But more troubling is the effort in the article to pin down the ideology of the film because it is about nuclear energy. Although the focus is on environmentalists, several of them are not American, and none of their ideological affiliations are discussed. Assuming they’re all liberal or that Stone is less liberal because he supports nuclear energy is just – insulting. Access to electricity is pretty close to being a human right – no affiliation necessary.

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Did Pandora's Promise Miss John Kerry's Change of Heart on Nuclear Energy?

Sec. John Kerry

One of the big ideas pushed by Pandora's Promise concerns the potential of breeder reactors to provide a technological fix to the political question of what to do with used nuclear fuel. A considerable segment of the film tells the story of the Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II) project at Argonne National Laboratory in Idaho and how funding for the project was killed in 1994 at the behest of the Clinton Administration.

The film contains a brief clip of U.S. Secretary of State and former U.S. Senator John Kerry (D-MA) urging his fellow senators to end funding for the EBR-II. But what the film didn't mention is that like the five environmentalists profiled in Pandora's Promise, Secretary Kerry has undergone something of a conversion on the question on nuclear energy himself.

Back in 2010, then-Senator Kerry was a co-sponsor of the American Power Act. Though it failed to pass into law, the proposed legislation included a number of key incentives that would have encouraged construction of new nuclear power plants here at home. The following points were culled directly from the press materials announcing the introduction of the legislation:

Increasing Nuclear Power Generation

• We have included a broad package of financial incentives to increase nuclear power generation including regulatory risk insurance for 12 projects, accelerated depreciation for nuclear plants, a new investment tax credit to promote the construction of new generating facilities, $5.4 billion in loan guarantees and a manufacturing tax credit to spur the domestic production of nuclear parts.
• We improve the efficiency of the licensing process.
• We invest in the research and development of small, modular reactors and enhanced proliferation controls.
• We designate an existing national laboratory as a nuclear waste reprocessing Center of Excellence.

Here's a clip we culled from C-SPAN's website of Secretary Kerry participating in a press conference announcing the introduction of the legislation.


The evolution of thinking on nuclear energy is happening across America, including at the highest levels of government.

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A Brief Review of Pandora's Promise

Robert Stone behind the camera.

It was back in 2006 that NEI Nuclear Notes published its first post with the title, "Another Environmentalist for Nuclear Energy." At the time, I could certainly have understood how a statement like that might seem more than a bit unbelievable.

Environmentalists? Supporting? Nuclear? Energy? Wasn't the environmental community unanimously opposed to nuclear energy? 

But what I had begun to see at the time was a growing understanding on the part of a number of thoughtful people about the size and scope of the challenge before mankind. How do you support a world with a growing population that aspires to enjoy the same standard of living that we've grown accustomed to in the developed world? And how do you do it without causing catastrophic damage to the planet?

It's was that conundrum that led environmentalists like Patrick Moore, James Lovelock and the late Rev. Hugh Montefiore to reconsider their position on nuclear energy. What began as a trickle has since become a flood, which is why filmmaker Robert Stone has spent the past several years making Pandora's Promise, a film tracing the journey of five environmentalists as they reconsidered their beliefs about nuclear energy.

Many of the individuals featured in the film will be familiar to the readers of NEI Nuclear Notes. Stewart Brand is the founder of the Whole Earth Catalog and one of the leading lights in the counter-cultural movement of the 1960s. Richard Rhodes is a journalist well known for his work chronicling the race to build the first atomic bomb. Gwyneth Cravens is an author who cut her teeth fighting the Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant on Long Island in the 1970s. Mark Lynas is a veteran of the U.K. environmental movement who at times has been best known for episodes of bombastic public behavior.

So what can you expect out of Pandora's Promise? As I wrote earlier this week, it was impossible not to be heartened to see nuclear energy talked about in terms of the benefits it delivers instead of its supposed shortcomings, and to see that story be told in such a skillful manner. I think the world has a lot to learn from the five principal figures profiled in the film. It takes a lot of guts to seriously examine your beliefs, and decide, as Brand does near the start of the film, "that everything you thought about nuclear energy was wrong."

The driver for their change of heart, of course, is the fear that rising levels of atmospheric carbon are contributing to potentially calamitous changes in the earth's climate. Here at NEI, we're not climate scientists and have never taken a position on anthropogenic global warming. But like Pandora's gang of five, we've come to the conclusion that if you're looking for a zero emission source of baseload power, then nuclear energy is the only option that fits the bill. As Stone himself said in a post-screening discussion on Monday night in Pleasantville, NY, "To take nuclear out of the equation when we need it most is irresponsible."

Pandora's Promise opened in New York City on Wednesday night, and premieres in 15 other cities nationwide today, with additional screenings being added all the time.

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Robert Stone and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Clash After Screening of Pandora's Promise

On Monday night, I traveled to Pleasantville, NY to attend a screening of Pandora's Promise. While I had originally intended to provide live coverage of the event via NEI's Twitter feed, I was foiled by poor reception inside the theater. I'm writing this summary to take it's place.

Pleasantville is only a 27-minute ride from Indian Point Energy Center, and a number of local anti-nuclear activists as well as plant employees were in attendance. All of us were met at the theater entrance by a volunteer from Riverkeeper who was distributing a copy of Pandora’s False Promises, a primer produced by Paul Gunter’s Beyond Nuclear. The presence of the Riverkeeper volunteer led the film’s director, Robert Stone, to quip from the podium that it was the “first time he had been picketed.”

I'm planning on posting a full review of the movie here on NEI Nuclear Notes ahead of Friday's nationwide premiere, so I won’t go into much detail concerning the film itself. From a personal perspective, it was heartening to see our industry’s value proposition explained in such an inspirational and artful manner. I don’t doubt that nuclear enthusiasts will enjoy the film and want to share it with friends and family.

Following the screening, Andrew Revkin of the New York Times moderated a discussion between Stone and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. of Riverkeeper, and it was here that the tenor of the event became contentious. The theater is not far from Kennedy’s boyhood home, and it was clear from the start that he views the film as something of a personal affront, a feeling that was no doubt magnified by the fact that he makes an appearance. In a brief clip, Kennedy is seen giving a speech to the Colorado Oil and Gas Association where he talks about how he believes that large renewable energy projects are actually natural gas plants.



Kennedy was not pleased, claiming that the clip was taken out of context, and that overall the film was “an elaborate hoax.” Among the more colorful exchanges:

• According to Kennedy, none of the individuals who appeared in the film were actual environmentalists and all were compromised by the fact that they either worked for or had been paid off by the nuclear industry. That led Revkin to interject, "You invest in solar, why should I believe you?"

• Kennedy said he considers The Breakthrough Institute to be an “anti-environmental” organization, and that founders Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger are “liars.” Stone retorted,"Why would I or any people in my film, lie?"

• While Stuart Brand might have founded the “Whole Earth Catalog,” his work was now hopelessly compromised because his organization, “The Long Now Foundation,” took corporate donations.

• Studies by the World Health Organization (WHO) about the health impact of Chernobyl were not to be believed because of the close relationship between WHO and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

• When Kennedy admitted he didn’t know much about climate change advocate Mark Lynas, Revkin interjected that he was a person “who cared about science.”

• And when Kennedy complained that there weren’t any alternative voices in the film that might have disputed studies concerning the health impacts of radiation, Stone stood his ground saying, “I will not put people in my films who would say documented untruths.” And after one extended Kennedy tirade, Stone said “you shouldn’t be attacking me, you should be attacking the fossil fuel industry.”

As for Stone, while he might have seemed taken aback by some of Kennedy's comments, he was clearly pleased with his finished product and the reaction it's been getting as he's been screening the documentary around the country, primarily on college campuses. According to Stone, the ideas in the film have "really brought people together," around the issue of nuclear energy, with the support crossing partisan lines.

"The solid middle realizes that climate change is a serious issue," said Stone. "To take nuclear out of the equation when we need it most is irresponsible."

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Where Can I See the Nuclear Energy Documentary Pandora's Promise?

This evening in Pleasantville, NY at the Jacob Burns Film Center, Robert Stone's new documentary, Pandora's Promise, will have its New York premiere. Following the screening, Stone will have a discussion with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. of Riverkeeper about the film. The discussion will be moderated by Andrew Revkin of the New York Times. NEI will be in attendance, and we'll be following the discussion live via our Twitter feed, @n_e_i. Please check in around 9:00 p.m. U.S. EDT for our live coverage.



So Where Can You See Pandora's Promise?

The official opening will be in New York City on June 12 at Sunshine Cinema on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Two days later, on June 14, the film will open in an additional 15 cities nationwide (Atlanta, Berkeley, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Irvine, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis, Washington, DC) with another four cities being added on June 21 (Austin, Charlotte, Dallas, Scottsdale) with other cities (Detroit, Santa Fe, Rhinebeck, NY) being added all the time. Tickets should also be available online through Fandango and MovieTickets.com. Consult the film's web site for a complete list of theaters. On April 30, 2013, CNN Films announced that it had acquired cable television broadcast rights to the film and intended to air it sometime in November 2013.

If and when you see the film, be sure to tweet about it and include the #PandorasPromise hash tag and the official handle, @PandorasPromise.

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