After an amazingly successful World Premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival this past Earth Day, Revenge of the Electric Car will be making an appearance at a handful of other festivals across the country, as we gear up for a wider release.  Check our "See the Film" page for links to showtimes, and keep checking back for new screening announcements and to request the film come to your city.

A little birdie told us that Chris Paine will be present for the Mountainfilm screenings, for those of you who can make it to Colorado for that festival and want to chat with the director in person. 

Tonight's second screening of Revenge of the Electric Car at the Tribeca Film Festival was followed by a 45-minute panel discussion with Dan Neil, Elon Musk, Chris Paine, Carlos Ghosn, and moderated by David Duchovny.  Actually, not just a panel discussion... a very vibrant, inspired, action-packed panel discussion.  Duchovny, a former electric Toyota RAV-4 owner and EV enthusiast, opened the talk by jumping right into the questions the audience members had on their minds after seeing the film.  What did they think of how they were portrayed?  What are Nissan's and Tesla's plans for the future and what has happened in EV development since the crew stopped filming?

Updates from the car makers were positive: Musk predicts Tesla will be paying off their Department of Energy loan ahead of schedule and sales of cars are up, while Ghosn claimed Nissan has a list of 250,000 people ready to buy the LEAF and his main problem now is that he can't build the cars fast enough to meet the high demand.  But auto journalist Dan Neil made sure to provide the checks and balances necessary to keep the car makers on their toes and into a heated conversation, not just a sales pitch for their cars, making them prove their claims with real facts, figures, and accurate projections.  At one point Neil said the battery technology is still at the bleeding edge of chemistry and engineering and that "you're not going to see EV semi-tractor trailers on the road any time soon."  To which Musk quickly replied, "yes you will."  The audience cheered.

Tonight's panel discussion illustrates what many EV enthusiasts have known for years- the technology isn't just coming, it's here, and electric cars in the mass market has a certain inevitability in the air.  What some audience members were most pleasantly surprised by would have to be the confidence of the car makers in electric vehicle technology.  The film follows these companies as they struggle to create the cars and take what most would call a huge gamble on the technology and the buying habits of the public.  But as Ghosn said in tonight's panel, "if you want to take a risk on something, this is a good one."

In late November we announced that we would release the trailer for the film when we reached our 10,000th fan on our Facebook Fan page.  Then on exactly Midnight, December 10th, 2010, we reached that 10,000th fan and the trailer was delivered.  The filmmakers stayed up that night emailing and calling each other with excitement- everyone glued to their computer screens and giving each other the fan count, watching anxiously as the number got closer and closer to our goal.  It was like our own private New Years Eve.
"9,857, Stefano!"
"It's at 9,962, Chris!"
"Is anyone on the Chicago team with the YouTube password staying awake to post it tonight?  Wake someone up!"

And apparently our Facebook fans were staying awake for the event as well: immediately after we posted the trailer the views on YouTube started soaring... 1,296... 2,687..."wait a minute, the trailer's only been up for 3 minutes!"  But more important than view counts were the comments.  We've been getting so many great comments and notes from everyone about how much they love the trailer, how excited they are for the film release, and for the release of the stars of the film themselves- the electric cars.

Filming behind the scenes of the creation of these new electric cars and the lengths their makers went through to have them hit the showrooms has been an amazing ride.  And now the ride continues as we edit the film and get it ready for the audiences so eagerly awaiting its release. 

To our fans: Thank you so much for rallying together to get the trailer released so quickly!  A lot of you have been asking what you can do to help promote the film, and it warms our hearts more than we can express to see how eager everyone is to help us get this film out there and in front of the car-buying public who could use electric car information.



The next step is to request the film on our website.  We're collecting requests across the world and will bring the film to the areas with the most requests first.  And as an inside tip from our marketing department... we're getting more requests from outside the USA than we anticipated... So come together, USA, and request the film in your city!  Thanks again, and happy holidays!