Nick Broomfield’s A Time Comes released online

The 20 minute film tells the story of the Kingsnorth Six, a group of Greenpeace volunteers who, in protest against government plans to build new coal plants across Britain, climbed the 220m chimney at a coal-fired power station in Kent in 2007. 

They were arrested and charged with causing criminal damage but in a ground-breaking decision, the jury found the activists not guilty because the damage they did to the smokestack was outweighed by the harm done to the planet by emissions from the power station.

The story caught the attention of producer Christina Robert of Bright Green Pictures and she brought Broomfield on board to direct. The film is available free-to-view on You-Tube’s new high definition service and on the Greenpiece website.

Broomfield said: “Obviously offering your services for a film is not exactly direct action but it’s doing something that is long overdue. People need to feel that they can be involved themselves directly rather than relying on other people to do it for them. I suppose this was my own little step in that direction.”

Speaking on the increasing popularity of online film distribution, he added: “There are new ways of disseminating films like You-Tube, MySpace, all that sort of thing, coupled with the more traditional ways of showing films. I think there’s an opportunity for more people to see the film than would have before.”