This Is Not a Drill 1 hour 20 Min. by Patagonia Films free viewing April 30, 2026
As extreme weather around the world grows deadlier, a new generation of leaders is rising to
face the challenges. From Oscar nominated filmmakers Betsy West and Oren Jacoby, This Is Not a Drill documents three unlikely heroes as they take on one of the most powerful industries in the world. Twenty-five-year-old Justin J. Pearson rallies a multiracial grassroots coalition to try and defeat a crude oil pipeline in Memphis, Tennessee. Roishetta Ozane, a mother of six from Louisiana, transforms personal loss into political action, taking her fight from the storm-ravaged streets to the halls of Congress. Sharon Wilson, a former oil insider turned methane hunter, uses infrared cameras to expose invisible, deadly gases pouring from fracking sites and pipelines in Texas that have been hiding in plain sight. Backing them are unlikely allies, descendants of John D. Rockefeller, who are exposing ExxonMobil’s decades-long cover up. Together, this coalition uncovers what they call Big Oil’s “Big Con” – an industry doubling down on fossil fuels while disguising the truth.
THIS IS NOT A DRILL is the story of courage, betrayal and grassroots victories showing how people, armed with only grit and determination, can stand up to power.
Encana/Ovintiv illegally frac’d my community’s drinking water aquifers in 2004, enabled and blessed by neighbours, Alberta regulators and politicians. I still do not have safe drinking water, 24 years later; I must haul from elsewhere.
