Avoca Beach Picture Theatre will screen “Last Paradise” on Sunday June 1, at 6pm, followed by a Question and Answer session with physicist-come-filmmaker, Clive Neeson.
Filmed over four decades by Clive and adventure pioneers, the original footage has been restored by Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” technical team who described it as “the most extraordinary footage we have ever seen”. Driven to innovate new ways of tapping into nature’s forces for adrenalin, Clive joined likeminded thrill seekers through the 1960s and 1970s in a global quest for adventure paradise.
The culmination of their 45 year global search turns out to be our own Australia, the Last Paradise. The fi lm was hailed in the USA as coining a “new genre” of film by using an exciting adventure story to subliminally address the world’s biggest issues. Through the original footage, a series of stories emerge with a relevance that connects to audiences, young and old. In and amongst the adrenaline and adventure, “Last Paradise” weaves issues of energy development, deforestation, species loss and urbanisation as particular audience takeaways.
“It is my life’s work,” said Clive. “We captured on fi lm the pioneering of extreme sports, that is, those which engage the wilderness and push the limits with the forces of nature. “It began with my mother, who was raised in an orphanage and escaped it all to become a wildlife cinematographer in Africa during the 1950s. “My parents raised four boys remotely and we all became addicted to that daily brush with danger. “I began filming at the age of 15 with a broken camera that I bought in a pawn shop because as a kid I was driven by the dream of what this film would be,” Clive said.
With a Master’s Degree in physics and a career in technology innovation, including the first digital movie camera and climate monitoring system, Clive incorporates scientific and educational elements into an eye-opening cinema experience for any age. He said he hoped “Last Paradise” would become an inspiration for the youth of today as well as a tool for education and social change. “I wanted to use the world’s biggest adventure story to address the world’s biggest issues – in this sense the film is an open letter to a generation inheriting a world vastly different to the one I and my friends grew up in,” said Clive.
“We cannot see where we are going unless we see where we’ve been and only original footage can give us that experience.” The winner of a string of international awards including Most Popular Film at the New Zealand Film Festival, Best of BANFF in Canada and The Ambassador of Green Award at XDance USA, “Last Paradise” will be screened nationally through May and June.
Media release,
20 May 2014
Adele Feletto, Adele
Feletto Publicity