EXCLUSIVE: They’ve disrupted a high-profile charity baseball game, public appearances by politicians and fossil fuel company executives, and even a Broadway show – a production of Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People.

“They” are Climate Defiance, a group of young activists led by founder Michael Greenberg who use controversial tactics to demand urgent action on the global warming crisis. At the Ibsen show in March 2024, members of Climate Defiance interrupted actors Jeremy Strong and Michael Imperioli as they performed, one of the demonstrators shouting, “No theater on a dead planet!”

The documentary Don’t Look Up, premiering Wednesday at CPH:DOX in Copenhagen, follows Greenberg as he turns his nascent organization into a growing force for climate action. The film, a production of Final Cut For Real, is directed by Emma Wall and Betsy Hershey and produced by Natja Rosner and four-time Oscar nominee Signe Byrge Sørensen. Oscar winner Adam McKay, who directed the 2021 satire also titled Don’t Look Up, serves as executive producer along with Oscar nominee Joshua Oppenheimer.

We have your first look at the film in the teaser below.

A synopsis describes protagonist Michael Greenberg as a “brazen visionary” and says of his group, “In the tradition of Gandhi’s Satyagraha, the Civil Rights Movement, and ACT UP, they use radical nonviolent direct action to jolt society awake, calling out Big Oil, corporate CEOs, and the politicians who enable them.”

“The film charts a motley, idealistic crew improvising, failing, regrouping, and pushing on to protect the planet,” the synopsis continues. “As they press forward, the film’s propulsive soundtrack is not background but fuel, with Chappell Roan, Doechii, and Billie Eilish pushing the pace and sharpening the stakes for a generation with no room to fail.”

Directors Wall and Hershey previously collaborated on the 2023 short documentary Guerrilla Habeas.

Don’t Look Up “started, in a way, with impatience,” they write in a directors’ statement. “We were tired of being told to wait. Wait for policies, wait for leaders, wait for ‘the right time.’ Meanwhile, the planet was warming, borders were hardening, and whole communities were being left to fend for themselves. We wanted to see what happens when people stop waiting.”

The filmmakers note, “We were standing at the front lines of a climate crisis that was already reshaping politics in ways impossible to ignore. But how do you approach something that vast and overwhelming?

“Our unexpected answer arrived during the pandemic, on a Zoom call. Adam McKay and the Climate Emergency Fund had gathered scientists, organizers, and even a few NASA researchers. We expected grim forecasts. Instead, we got a guide to how change actually happens. Nonviolent civil disobedience, they shared, isn’t chaos. It is a craft. From Gandhi’s Salt March to the Suffragettes chaining themselves to railings. From the lunch counter sit-ins of the civil rights movement to ACT UP’s die-ins during the AIDS crisis. Again and again, disruption has been the lever that moves the immovable. History shows that when people step out of line in disciplined, visible, and inconvenient ways, power responds. The research points the same way. When just 3.5% of a population commits to sustained disruption, governments almost always shift.”

Regarding Climate Defiance, the directors write, “They broke with decorum. They unsettled polite rooms. At times they unsettled us. That was the point. Discomfort was not collateral damage. It was the strategy.

“As filmmakers, we followed the activists not to endorse or condemn but to watch. We found a movement both fragile and fierce. They were clever and strategic and often funny. They were also messy, argumentative, and full of doubt. They failed. They regrouped. They tried again. What struck us most was their refusal of despair. Faced with an overwhelming crisis, they insisted on agency and possibility… The personal risk to protesters like Michael Greenberg is growing.

“In the end, this isn’t simply a film about protest. It is about the stubborn human impulse to fight for a livable future. It is also about the odd mix of defiance, humor, and sheer determination it takes to do it.”

Timothy Grucza serves as cinematographer on Don’t Look Up. Adam Nielsen edited the film; the score is composed by RØMANS. The documentary soundtrack features songs by an incredible array of talent: along with the aforementioned Chappell Roan, Doechhi, and Billie Eilish, there’s Tyler, The Creator, Childish Gambino, Bob Dylan, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Freg Again, Brian Eno, and Michael Kiwanuka.

If you want to lend an ear to the Don’t Look Up Spotify playlist, click here.

Watch the teaser trailer for Don’t Look Up here: