EXCLUSIVE: For the grassroots activists in a new documentary, confronting Big Oil and environmental racism isn't an idle pastime. It's not a drill. It's a matter of urgency involving the wellbeing of their communities and themselves.
The trio of Justin J. Pearson, Roishetta Ozane, and Sharon Wilson form the heart of This Is Not a Drill, the film directed by Oscar nominee Oren Jacoby.
The documentary, which held its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival last year, screens Wednesday - Earth Day - at Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York City. On April 30, the nonfiction feature will post to Patagonia's YouTube page, where it can be viewed for free.
We have your first look at the documentary in the teaser-trailer below.
"As extreme weather around the world grows deadlier, a new generation of leaders is rising to face the challenge," notes a description of This Is Not a Drill. "In the American South, hard hit by climate disasters, three unlikely heroes take on one of the most powerful industries in the world."
One of those heroes - Justin Pearson - is a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives who made headlines in 2023 when he and another state rep were expelled from the Republican-controlled legislature for staging a gun control protest on the House floor (he was later reappointed).
Roishetta Ozane, meanwhile, "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." Fifth-generation Texan 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."
The documentary explores how those activists link up with unexpected allies in descendants of John D. Rockefeller, the tycoon who controlled Standard Oil.
The film synopsis states, "This Is Not a Drill is the story of courage, betrayal and grassroots victories showing how people, armed only with grit and determination, can stand up to power."
The documentary is a Patagonia Films and Storyville Films production in association with Ford Foundation and JustFilms. It won the audience award for Best Documentary Feature at the 2025 GlobeDocs Film Festival in Boston.
The film is directed by Oren Jacoby and written and produced by Oscar nominee Betsy West (RBG, Julia). Along with West, producers include Sam Jinishian, Janet Klein, Alex Lowther, and Monika McClure. Sam Pollard served as consulting producer. Executive producers are Geralyn Dreyfous, Melony and Adam Lewis, and Melissa Johnson. Ilya Chaiken edited the film; original music is by Joel Goodman.
Directors of photography are Rachel Beth Anderson, Buddy Squires, Tom Hurwitz, Stefan Wiesen, Bob Richman, Jason Longo, and Andy Sarjahani.
In a director's statement, Jacoby says the stories of his protagonists - Pearson, Ozane, and Wilson - "led me as a director to the cinematic language of a detective-story. They are the investigators. They are casing the scene of crimes they saw being committed and are holding the industry accountable for hurting them and their families. This Is Not a Drill shows how they came up with sophisticated methods to fight back and marshal that evidence to build strong cases."
Jacoby continues, "Justin, Roishetta, and Sharon are ordinary citizens who have become part of an organized opposition that is making the expansion of oil and gas infrastructure more difficult. They understand that this could be the most effective strategy in the urgent effort to slow down climate change."
