8 Billion Angels
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Release Date: April 20, 2021
Running Time: 79 min
Rating: NR
Director: Victor Velle
Producers: Terry Spahr, Katya Alexander, Doug Emerson
Global warming, food and water shortages, catastrophic storms, extinction of species, habitat loss ...the list of environmental, social and economic catastrophes afflicting our planet goes on and on. If there was a simple root cause, and a fundamental solution, wouldn’t you want to know?
Enter Terry Spahr and his 8 Billion Angels (8BA) team to do what most of the environmental community has yet to do: connect the dots among all of the “downstream” symptoms of our global environmental crises with their fundamental upstream cause- overpopulation. 8BA uses breath-taking photography and startling emotion to show how mankind’s incredible success, as measured in numbers and wealth, could ultimately undo us all. It trades political correctness for an honest assessment and real solutions to our growing emergencies.
8BA explores the impact of overpopulation on marine, animal and human life. Always present but rarely named, overpopulation impacts us all, from the loss of green space to urban sprawl, from gridlocked traffic to beaches strewn with plastic or closed due to water pollution. Combining powerful stories with immersive photography, 8BA makes overpopulation understandable and personal by focusing as much on human emotions as scientific facts.
How? The film tells the stories of individuals around the world impacted by overpopulation, giving faces and voices to an issue that is often relegated to the shadows of our personal, political and international discourse. We learn what trying to find clean water is like in the densest cities in India; how overdevelopment of our land has impacted the oyster industry in Maine; and in what ways our mass agricultural machine has fueled an ever expanding population at the expense of the natural resources upon which it depends.
Finally, the film delivers a message of beauty and hope about solving a complex problem of global proportions.