119. Conversations with Coal Miners about Climate Change
Kim Paul Nguyen on his ‘must-watch’ film
Kim Paul Nguyen is a multimedia journalist and filmmaker. He recently produced a documentary film called ‘Conversations with Coal Miners about Climate Change’, funded by the Walkley Foundation and distributed by VICE. And what a film. Damon Gameau, the award-winning filmmaker of 2040, That Sugar Film, and most recently Regenerating Australia, calls it a ‘must-watch’. In many ways, there is no more important a story. And Kim navigates it beautifully. Though not without hitting up against the challenges that make this work so vital.
Kim setting up in Clermont, Queensland (vision from the film, supplied).
“I don’t think that people should be afraid of bringing up climate, or a controversial issue, with people that they disagree with on that issue. Because I think if you sit with someone and listen to their point of view and respect their point of view, then I think you can talk about anything.”
Out of the story’s dramatic and moving turns so much is revealed, including how coal miners, and the rest of us, are too often used as political pawns. And how we can get out of that trap, to have a chance at achieving more of the bigger picture outcomes just about all of us want.
Kim’s is a heck of a life story to date, and this provides the backdrop to the film. As a young person deeply concerned about climate change, he became a committed activist. In 2009 he cycled from Australia to Denmark to promote action on climate change, and was nominated for Young Australian of the Year. But it started to dawn on him that what he was doing wasn’t working. It wasn’t changing things the way he’d hoped. So he headed north, camera in hand, to dig deeper into what might.
Kim has also written for The Guardian, Al Jazeera, VICE and the Big Issue.
This conversation was recorded online with Kim at home in Sydney, on 11 May 2022.
Find more:
Kim’s latest film ‘Conversations With Coal Miners About Climate Change’ (37 minutes, freely available).
Music:
Temporary, by Yen Nguyen.
Regeneration, composed by Amelia Barden, from the soundtrack of the new film Regenerating Australia, on tour around Western Australia this week.