In recent years Sundance has always opened with a documentary. This year was no different. And since the festival has also never shied away from hot-button political topics, Al Gore’s follow up to his climate change doc from ten years ago (which also premiered here), An Inconvenient Sequel, was an obvious choice. After the premiere, as usual eloquently introduced by festival founder Robert Redford, the eleven minute standing ovation had as much to do with the film itself as with the current political climate. Especially since one pivotal scene almost serves as a cliffhanger for what is to come: the former vice president enters a gold elevator in a gold building on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan and ascends to the Trump offices. There the camera is only on him when he delivers a report on climate change. We never see nor hear the subsequent conversation with Trump. When Gore went on stage Thursday night to answer questions from the audience, the one about what happened after that scene, he would not answer except to say: „I try to protect the confidence of that situation in case I need to have some more. Over the years there’s been a lot of climate change deniers that changed over time. Whether or not he will remains to be seen. Two days after that meeting he appointed someone to head the EPA that I don’t think should be heading the EPA.“

Instead, on the eve of what many in the audience and around the world fear will be the beginning of a very dark period in American politics, Mr. Gore delivered a message of hope: „Whether or not Donald Trump, inaugurated tomorrow will take this approach, we will see, but let me reiterate: no one person can stop this. It’s too big now. We are shifting. We are going to win this!“

To rousing applause he ended with:’I am so grateful to all of you for coming to see this. And if anybody doubts that we have the capacity and the will to act, just always remember – the will to act is itself a renewable resource.“