“How to Blow Up a Pipeline” is exactly that – a movie that charts how a disparate group of young Americans come together to perform what authorities would call an act of domestic terrorism.
A hit at Sundance with a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, “Pipeline” is very much a product of the pandemic says co-writer and actor Ariela Barer (pronounced Bah-her).
“This all came about first because we were deep into lockdown pandemic times, pre-vaccine. Daniel Goldhaber, Jordan Sjol and I were all potted up together in one home,” she began.
“One night Daniel and I were having a conversation about how we felt so disempowered in our lives and our careers in the world. We just wanted to make a piece of art with our friends that mattered to us. He thought of the book and immediately proposed a heist film about people who come together to blow up a pipeline. I read the book immediately and became obsessed with it. It was just off to the races from there.”
However, the only thing they take from Andreas Malm’s book is its title.
“What we see in the movie is a group planning eco terrorism. They’re going to blow up a pipeline and they consider themselves environmentalists and good guys. And gradually, we get flashbacks for each, like a little biography of why each person is there.
“The book,” Barer, 24, noted in a Zoom interview, “is just a radical manifesto. It’s 100 pages of academic text and an argument as to why Andreas believes that at a certain point, an act like this is justified and why we should be moving the Left in this direction. He makes the argument that historical movements of the past have been sanitized and there is a precedent for property destruction and sabotage in most successful social justice movements of the past.
“So that’s the whole book. There’s no story, there’s no characters, there’s no fiction.”
While the trio collaborated as writers and Goldhaber directs and Barer stars, no one knew how the film would turn out.
“Daniel and I bankrolled the movie at the beginning,” she revealed. “Because there was no money and we knew it had to happen, we flew ourselves out and did everything we had to do.”
That included, “A whole location scouting trip with no budget attached to it.
“I would have completely destroyed my finances and my career as a consequence if this hadn’t worked out. But I just felt that at a certain point that there was no other choice. It was just so personal to me.”
“How to Blow Up a Pipeline” opens April 14