Crude Progress

What will life be like when the oil runs out？ It's the year 2030 and the Orkney Islands lie empty, only relics remain, a rusting ship, a broken jetty, an empty oil terminal. Three survivors emerge; a prophet, a merchant and a woman who cares for old cats. They remember little but a few traces. Part document of the past, part imagination of the future, "Crude Progress" charts the rise and fall of the oil industry in the small community of the Orkney Islands. Set to the music of composer James MacMillan and employing documentary footage of tugboats and tankers the film mimics a folk tale warning us against the seductiveness of capitalism and the illusion of progress.