The Vancougar Professors and Alumni Call for Climate Action in "Necessity" Film Project

“Necessity: Climate Justice & the Thin Green Line” weaves together narratives of community-centered activism with Indigenous thought to tell the story of climate activism in the Pacific Northwest. 

Oregon Arts Watch ‘Necessity’ and the Zenith Energy oil train protests

Portland documentary filmmaker Jan Haaken talks about the Columbia Gorge, oil trains, civil disobedience, and her newest film.

The Columbian

The Vancouver, Washington news site features images from the film Necessity: Climate Justice & the Thin Green Line, which highlights activism in the Vancouver area and beyond. 

Tribal Conversations Interview Director Jan Haaken

Host Steven Glickman and Director Jan Haaken discuss her latest documentary, "Necessity: Rails, Rivers, & the Thin Green Line," which is set in Oregon and centers on direct action activists fighting to bring attention to the climate crisis and to solutions to the crisis.

Screening with Columbia Riverkeeper

On November 18, 2021, join us for the first public virtual screening and panel discussion for "Necessity: Rails, Rivers & the Thin Green Line." Funds raised from this benefit event will support the Necessity film series and Columbia Riverkeeper. 

Oregon Arts Watch Land and Water: By Necessity 

A gathering of Native American activists and allies and an Oregon-produced film join the battle against pipelines and other climate threats

Zinn Education Project Teaching Climate Disobedience: Using the Film Necessity in the Classroom

A lesson about multiple cohorts of climate activists: Indigenous leaders in the Climate Justice Movement, valve turners using civil disobedience to stop the flow of oil, and the legal team that uses the “necessity defense” in the courts.

University College Cork Ireland Department of Sociology and Criminology News

Prof. Jan Haaken presented an advance screening of her latest film, Necessity: Oil, Water & Climate Resistance. It was shown on Wednesday 11 March 2020 at 6pm in the lecture theatre at St. John’s Central College, Cork.

Young Geographer Magazine Contested Boundaries: People, Law, and Oil Pipelines

An article about the film from Co-Director Samantha Praus and Assistant Producer Jasmine Eppelheimer. 

Patch Arts & Entertainment Film Screening for #StopLine3

Extinction Rebellion NYC hosts an outdoor screening of the documentary Necessity: Oil, Water, and Climate Resistance

Necessity: Oil, Water & Climate Resistance is a uniquely compelling documentary.  My high school students were fascinated to learn of the examples of 21st-century civil disobedience so carefully depicted in this film.  Students are used to seeing civil disobedience as it is too often portrayed in textbooks — the sepia-toned photos of the Sit-Ins and Freedom Rides that appear to be relics of the past and not applicable to their own time. This film belongs in our classrooms if we believe students deserve a curriculum that is relevant, urgent, and committed to a just future.

--Ursula Wolfe-Rocca, High School Teacher and Editor, Rethinking Schools