Pandora's Promise is a feature-length 2013 documentary film on DVD about the history and future of nuclear power.The atomic bomb and meltdowns like Fukushima have made nuclear power synonymous with global disaster. But what if we’ve got nuclear power wrong?

Pandora's Promise asks whether the one technology we fear most could save our planet from a climate catastrophe, while providing the energy needed to lift billions of people in the developing world out of poverty. In his controversial new film, Academy-Award nominated director, Robert Stone, tells the intensely personal stories of environmentalists and energy experts who have undergone a radical conversion from being fiercely anti to strongly pro-nuclear energy, risking their careers and reputations in the process.

Stone exposes this controversy within the environmental movement head-on with stories of defection by heavy weights including Stewart Brand, Richard Rhodes, Gwyneth Cravens, Mark Lynas and Michael Shellenberger. Undaunted and fearlessly independent, Pandora's Promise is a landmark work that is forever changing the conversation about the myths and science behind this deeply emotional and polarising issue.

Pandora's Promise Documentary Reviews

“Whatever your stance, Stone’s compelling film opens Pandora’s box and promises to change the conversation for years to come” – Sundance Film Festival

“When was the last time you saw a documentary that fundamentally changed the way you think?… Pandora’s Promise is built around what should be the real liberal agenda: looking at an issue not with orthodoxy, but with open eyes” – Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment We­ekly

“A nuclear bomb goes off early in this thought provoking doco when Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Making of the Atom Bomb, a well known liberal democrat, says his revised stand on nuclear energy – from NO to YES – has people puzzled. The explosive nature of his ‘backflip’ is echoed by several other highly respected individuals. As Mark Lynas puts it, being an environmentalist goes together with being anti-nuclear energy. "It used to be the case,” the Englishman adds in understated tones. Indeed, the film itself is admirably understated in its tone, in sharp contrast to the shrill activism of the anti nuclear activists (eg misinformed Aussie Helen Caldicott) shown in archival footage. The activists ‘got nuclear’ when they ‘got the science’ that is behind nuclear weapons v nuclear energy. The film, of course, frames the subject in the context of man made global warming being an urgent problem to solve by reducing carbon emissions – but even if this proves to be the wrong tree to bark upon, the film makes the case for the use of nuclear energy as a better option than coal or oil. In a shattering revelation, Michael Shellenberger admits his utter ignorance about nuclear energy's impact, having assumed a draconian set of statistics – totally unsupported by facts. This is isn't unique and it is to the film's credit that it exposes such fervent ideology based on ignorance. (But isn't that usually the case?) Now, these activists display the vigour of the convert. The utter irony in which this doco is steeped is that the very same reasons – the safe preservation of earth's environ­ment – are now driving the very same people who stood against nuclear energy … in favour of nuclear energy. They have, as filmmaker Robert Stone says in his statement on the film, escaped the ‘rigid orthodoxies of modern environmentalis­m’.If nothing else, the lesson of Chernobyl is instructive – and not as you would imagine…this film is a welcome contribution to the urgent debate about the clean and unlimited source of energy that is within our grasp. Crazy if we don't." Urban Cinefile, Aus