Bell Media's Award-Winning Original Documentary How To Change The World Launches Across Multiple Platforms Beginning December 3

– Commissioned by Bell Media from Canada's Insight Productions, documentary tells the captivating story of Greenpeace and the Canadian at the forefront, Bob Hunter –
– Oscar^® long-list doc premieres on HBO Canada on December 3 in conjunction with the 2015 Paris United Nations climate conference –
– Winner of multiple awards and accolades including a Sundance Special Jury Award and an Audience Favourite at Hot Docs –

"…a fascinating, skillfully assembled chronicle…one of the year's most satisfying documentaries." – Los Angeles Times
"Top Ten Of The Year" – NOW Magazine
"…a real-life thriller with larger-than-life heroes." – The Huffington Post 
 "…a compelling story of one environmentalist's remarkable combination of prescience, grit and timing." – The Globe and Mail

To tweet this release: http://bmpr.ca/1kC5kbR #HowToChangeTheWorld

TORONTO, Nov. 17, 2015 /CNW/ - Following a critically acclaimed, triumphant run at film festivals throughout the world, and theatrical premieres in Toronto, New York, and Los Angeles, Bell Media presents the exclusive North American television and streaming premiere of Jerry Rothwell's How To Change The World, the Canada/U.K. co-production about the birth of the modern green movement and the creation of Greenpeace. Commissioned by Bell Media in 2013 and recently long-listed for an Academy Award^®, the 110-minute documentary feature rolls out across a sequence of Bell Media platforms through a programming strategy designed to present this ground-breaking film to a maximum audience, beginning Thursday, December 3 at 9 p.m. ET/MT when the doc has its Canadian broadcast premiere on HBO Canada, coinciding with the 2015 Paris United Nations climate conference. Click here for a preview of How To Change The World.

Currently with a 95% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, earlier this year How To Change The World began its extraordinary run as the Day One World Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won a Special Jury Award for Editing, as well as the Candescent Award. Its subsequent appearances at festivals throughout the world continued to amass awards and accolades, including: Top Ten Audience Favourite at Hot Docs; Best Environmental Documentary at Sheffield Doc Fest; Best Feature Film at Sebastopol Documentary Festival; Best Feature Film at Global Visions Film Festival; Best Feature Film at Portland EcoFilm Festival; and the Pare Lorentz Award from the International Documentary Association.

"As the world convenes for climate change talks in Paris, we're reminded of how relevant the work of Bob Hunter and Greenpeace remains. We're immensely proud to be involved with this timely story about the global impact of a visionary Canadian," said Mike Cosentino, Senior Vice-President, Programming, CTV Networks and CraveTV, Bell Media. "Heartfelt congratulations go out to our partners at Insight Productions and Met Film on a truly remarkable, thought-provoking, and meaningful film."

"I've wanted to tell this story for a very long time, so it's been incredibly gratifying to see how audiences, critics, and juries around the world have responded to it," said John Brunton, CEO of Insight Productions.  "I'm very grateful to our friends at Bell Media for having the foresight early on to help bring this important project to fruition."

Bell Media's launch plan for How To Change The World is as follows:

• Premium, Pay TV audiences get the first look on Thursday, December 3 at 9 p.m. ET/MT;
• the next day, December 4, the film joins the #iCraveFridays schedule on CraveTV™, where it will anchor the popular Documentary collection;
• the title premieres on Bell Media's flagship network, CTV, in a reduced commercial time broadcast on January 3 at 8 p.m. ET/PT;
• the next day, January 4, How To Change The World will stream on CTV.ca.

In 1971, a group of friends sail into a nuclear test zone and their protest captures the world's imagination, giving birth to Greenpeace and defining the modern green movement. Directed by Jerry Rothwell (Town of Runners), How To Change The World chronicles the adventures of this eclectic group of young pioneers – Canadian hippie journalists, photographers, musicians, scientists, and American draft dodgers – who set out to stop Richard Nixon's atomic bomb tests in Amchitka, Alaska, and end up making history. At the heart of the group is Bob Hunter, a charismatic Canadian journalist from Winnipeg who somehow managed to bind them together into a group with a single purpose, often at huge cost to himself. The story is framed by his first-person narrative, drawn from his writings and journals about the group, voiced alongside animations based on his early comics.

Media savvy from the beginning, the group captured their seat-of-their-pants activist adventures on 16mm film and coined the term "mind bomb," knowing that the advent of global mass communications meant that the image had become a more effective tool for change than the strike or the demonstration. Together they pioneered a template for environmental activism by attempting daring iconic feats like placing small rubber inflatable boats between harpooners and whales, blocking ice-breaking sealing ships with their bodies, and spraying the pelts of baby seals with dye to make them valueless in the fur market.

How To Change The World is written and directed by Jerry Rothwell. From U.K.'s Met Film and Daniel Film, and Canada's Insight Productions, the film is a BFI and Sky presentation in association with Bell Media, Impact Partners, and Shark Island Productions. Producers are Al Morrow, and Bous De Jong. Supervising producer is John Murray. Executive Producers are Jonny Persey, Stewart Le Marechal, David Nicholas Wilkinson, John Brunton, and Barbara Bowlby. Executive producers for BFI are Christopher Collins and Lizzie Francke. Executive producers for Sky are Lorraine Charker-Phillips and Celia Taylor. Executive producer for Impact Partners is Dan Cogan. Executive producer for Shark Island Productions is Ian Darling.

For Bell Media, production executive is Robin Johnston. Corrie Coe is Senior Vice-President, Independent Production, Bell Media. Tracey Pearce is Senior Vice-President, Specialty and Pay, Bell Media. Mike Cosentino is Senior Vice-President, CTV Networks and CraveTV, Bell Media. Randy Lennox is President, Entertainment Production and Broadcasting, Bell Media.

About Bell Media Independent Production
Bell Media has commissioned some of Canada's most-watched and most-acclaimed original programming, working with the best Canadian independent producers in the country. Hit series commissioned by CTV include ratings success stories SAVING HOPE, MOTIVE, the record-breaking THE AMAZING RACE CANADA, and MASTERCHEF CANADA. Among the original scripted series on Bell Media pay and specialty channels are the internationally acclaimed ORPHAN BLACK, the smash-hit thriller BITTEN, Space's most-watched original series KILLJOYS, Bravo's most-watched original drama 19-2, award-winning dramedy SENSITIVE SKIN, and upcoming cult comedy, LETTERKENNY. Bell Media specialty channels are also home to hit factual series HIGHWAY THRU HELL, COLD WATER COWBOYS, and CANADA'S WORST DRIVER, among others.

About Bell Media
With passion and an unrelenting commitment to excellence, Bell Media creates content and builds brands that entertain, inform, engage, and inspire audiences through the platforms of their choice. Bell Media is Canada's premier multimedia company with leading assets in television, radio, out-of-home advertising, and digital media. Bell Media owns 30 local television stations led by CTV, Canada's #1 television network; 34 specialty channels, including TSN and RDS, Canada's most-watched specialty channels in English and French; and four pay TV services, including The Movie Network and Super Écran. Bell Media is also Canada's largest radio broadcaster, with 106 licensed radio stations in 54 markets across Canada. Bell Media owns Astral Out of Home, one of Canada's most dynamic and innovative out-of-home advertising companies with a network of more than 13,500 advertising faces in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, Québec, and Nova Scotia. Bell Media also operates more than 200 websites; delivers TV Everywhere with premium subscription on-demand streaming service CraveTV, as well as its innovative GO video streaming services including CTV GO, Discovery GO, TMN GO, and TSN GO; operates multi-channel network Much Digital Studios; holds an equity stake in digital startup Hubub; is partners in Cirque du Soleil Media, a joint venture with Cirque du Soleil; and owns Dome Productions Inc., a multi-platform production company. Bell Media is part of BCE Inc. (TSX, NYSE: BCE), Canada's largest communications company. For more on Bell Media, please visit www.bellmedia.ca.

SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS:

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@TMN_Publicity
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SOURCE Bell Media

Nicolle Balen, Bell Media, 416.384.4061 or [email protected]