A crew of young environmental activists execute a daring mission to sabotage an oil pipeline in this taut and timely thriller that is part high-stakes heist, part radical exploration of the climate crisis.
The film is based on the nonfiction book written by Andreas Malm, How to Blow Up a Pipeline: Learning to Fight in a World on Fire, and published in 2021 by Verso Books. Malm believes that sabotage is a logical form of climate activism, and criticizes pacifism within the climate movement and “climate fatalism” outside it.
This is what inspired the filmmakers to dramatize Andreas’s manifesto and make it into a heist movie. Telling a story about a progressive action that shows characters who know, with confidence, what they’re doing and why, that portrays an act of revolution in a grounded, visceral, relatable way.
Here’s how they came up with the musical score for the film:
“The beginning of the film had to establish all the instruments and sounds we were going to use for the score,” composer Gavin Brivik said. “At its core, this movie is a high-stakes heist movie, but there is still a sense of excitement and fun in the beginning. ‘Why I Destroyed Your Property,’ had to find that balance between the two moods.”
“We had a drumstick with a super bouncy ball attached to the end, and we dragged it across the metal pipes to create ominous resonate drones,” said Brivik.
“We wrote three scores for this movie because we didn’t want to settle, and kept rewriting scenes to make it better. This is also the first time I’ve traveled to a set to sample and record actual oil drums, pipes and found sounds to create a score. It takes a lot of trust to give a composer this much freedom, and Daniel created an environment where I could explore and creatively fail until we found the right sound for the movie.”
Here’s the score for “Why I Destroyed Your Property” – partially recorded in New Mexico.
Starring Ariela Barer, Kristine Froseth, Lukas Gage, Forrest Goodluck, Sasha Lane, Jayme Lawson, Marcus Scribner & Jake Weary
A Film By Daniel Goldhaber, Ariela Barer, Jordan Sjol, Daniel Garber
Written By Ariela Barer, Jordan Sjol, Daniel Goldhaber
