I Am Greta (2020)

Directed by: Nathan Grossman | 102 minutes | documentary, biography | Starring: Greta Thunberg, Svante Thunberg, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Antonio Guterres, Malena Ernman

“Suddenly” she was there: Greta Thunberg. The Swedish teenager decided to go on strike for the climate in 2018. She took a seat in front of the Swedish parliament with a cardboard sign on which was written ‘Skolstrejk för climaten’ in black felt-tip pen. She had carefully put together flyers explaining her call for immediate action mode. Initially only a few passers-by stopped to watch, but everyone now knows how large her following is now.

In Greta’s first fifteen years of life, the turning point came about when she was eight: when she learned about environmental problems and the imminent threat to life on Earth. So of course she wasn’t there “all of a sudden”, the years before that prepared her and her parents – with all the ups and downs – for this battle. Her compatriot Nathan Grossman filmed her from the beginning – a stroke of luck and every documentary maker’s dream, because at the time he had no idea how radically Greta’s life would change and how far her influence would reach.

‘I Am Greta’ follows the Swedish climate activist in intimate moments and in all her important public appearances, from her first strike to after her speech at the United Nations climate summit in New York. Central to this is her drive and intelligence; after only a few meetings with political leaders, Greta already indicates that she has the idea that they are all just acting. The empty promises hurt her and that’s understandable, because her message just doesn’t seem to be heard. “Is my microphone on? Is my English understandable?” she asks at a meeting in London, which arouses laughter. The fact that during emotional speeches she is looked at with tenderness by some attendees and that adults are only too happy to take selfies with her, gives an image that she is indeed considered cute rather than taken seriously. Affecting the people who can make a difference or not, Greta’s actions do affect peers. The images of the countless climate strikes worldwide show how inspiring Greta is.

What makes ‘I Am Greta’ special are the fly on the wall images that paint a realistic picture of the girl herself. Yes, she is focused and passionate about her mission. But she’s also an ordinary teenager, who misses her dogs during the sailing trip to the United States, who is forced by her father to have lunch, sometimes laughs at a crazy photo, loses her energy by dancing and who stubbornly continues to scrape her speech despite the fact that her father indicates that it is really good this way.

Fans, followers and admirers of Greta Thunberg will of course embrace this film, but the makers are not afraid to show the criticism that the young girl has to endure. There are countless climate deniers who flatly ignore the evidence of science. Through hateful comments to her family and about her condition (“I wouldn’t say I suffer from it, but yeah, I have it,” she tells an Italian journalist about Asperger’s syndrome), they attempt to trace the comet-like rise of Greta Thunberg to control. However, Greta persists, as frustrating as that may be, and with her millions of others who may be against her better judgment, continue to hope for change. Must see.