Escape From Suburbia: Beyond the American Dream

A review of the new Peak Oil documentary and a Q & A with its director

Canadian Director Gregory Greene has delivered again, this time raising the bar with his much anticipated film “Escape From Suburbia,” a sequel to his 2004 award-wining documentary “The End of Suburbia.”

This follow-up focuses on the citizen and community responses that Peak Oil awareness has fomented across North America


“Escape From Suburbia” plans to build on that success and reach out to an ever-growing environmentally-aware audience which has, until now, been more focused on global warming than on oil depletion, a counter-intuitive phenomenon observed and commented on throughout the film by the likes of David Suzuki and Elizabeth May (leader of Canada’s Green Party).

The message in this film has moved past the identification and understanding of a problem and toward an analysis of it and how people can take action toward solving the problem. The overall message conveyed in this film is one of hope and optimism, but only if the viewer puts into motion solutions through their own actions. This notion was succinctly articulated in the film by the quote, “‘Action encourages optimism.”

The Republic of East Vancouver