Packed house gets peek at PUMP in L.A.
If Monday was a prelude of what’s to come, PUMP is going to find an enthusiastic audience when it hits theaters Friday.
The documentary film, produced by Fuel Freedom Foundation and Submarine Deluxe, landed on the big screen at the Landmark Theatres in Los Angeles for a sneak preview Monday night. Hundreds of guests gave the film a very positive response, cheering its message promoting fuel choice as the path to ending our nation’s addiction to oil.
“This is all about making this into a movement, inviting people and making it happen,” Fuel Freedom co-founder Eyal Aronoff said afterward during a Q&A session.
Fuel Freedom chairman Yossie Hollander (left) and actors Chris Meloni, Xander Berkeley and Sarah Clarke, with PUMP director Josh Tickell. Credit: Dan Steinberg
During the session, Aronoff; his fellow Fuel Freedom co-founder Yossie Hollander; PUMP co-directors Josh Tickell and Rebecca Harrell Tickell; and Submarine co-founder Dan Braun discussed the two-year journey that took PUMP from concept to finished product. The Tickells discussed traveling the world to conduct interviews and shoot footage. They gave credit to writer Johnny O’Hara for researching the film’s narrative and weaving in historical context that draws a direct line from the origins of the oil industry to the monopoly it still enjoys today.
Josh Tickell said the film counters the long history of propaganda produced by oil interests, and he urged moviegoers to not let misinformation get in the way of practical solutions to achieve fuel choice. “The way you’re viewing reality is possibly killing what’s possible,” he said.
Before the film, Aronoff, Hollander and Braun welcomed guests and posed for photos. Among those who turned out were actors Kevin Pollack (“The Usual Suspects”), Christopher Meloni (“Law & Order: Special Victims Unit”), Xander Berkeley and his wife Sarah Clarke (both of “24”), and Alysia Reiner (“Orange is the New Black”).
PUMP officially opens in theaters Friday in Los Angeles (at the Laemmle Royal Theater on Santa Monica Boulevard) and New York City (at the AMC Empire 25 on 42nd Street). Check PumpTheMovie.com for a complete list of upcoming showtimes, as well as a link to buy tickets.
You can learn more about #PumpTheMovie and our larger movement by visiting our Facebook page at Facebook.com/FuelFreedomFoundation.
