The Oil Machine
Emma Davie / United Kingdom / 2022 / 78 min
The great oil adventure of the North Sea is given a historical overhaul in a film about the still-flowing oil that has helped raise living standards for decades and now threatens to collapse the climate.
The golden age is over. Wars, financial crises and the threat of climate collapse have taken the adventure out of North Sea oil. The black gold is still flowing, but with rising sea levels and increased awareness of carbon emissions, the battle lines are clearly drawn between climate activists, drillers, investors and economists. Emma Davie (‘Becoming Animal’, CPH:DOX 2018) delves into the far-flung oil complex out at sea in a film that also draws out the historical lines in the grand narrative of North Sea oil, which has also been tightly woven with the Danish welfare state for decades. A thorough and perceptive film that lets the individual parties speak their minds.