Sweden, a school day, and a 15-year-old student who has decided not to go to class. I Am Greta is the 2020 documentary that follows Greta Thunberg from that first school strike for the climate to the point where her name is known around the world. Nathan Grossman directs this 97-minute biographical portrait.
What is I Am Greta about?
The starting point is a question Thunberg put to the adults around her: if they did not care about her future on earth, why should she care about her future in school? Acting on it, she began a strike on her own. Grossman's camera stays with her as that solitary protest draws other students, then crowds, and within months becomes a movement with followers in many countries. The documentary also travels with her on an international journey undertaken to pass on what scientists have been saying about the state of the planet. Alongside the public events it keeps returning to the person at the centre, a quiet teenager on the autism spectrum who is adjusting to sudden fame while continuing to do what she set out to do.
About the cast
As a documentary, the film has participants rather than a cast in the usual sense. Greta Thunberg is its subject and is present throughout. The credited names after hers are Svante Thunberg, Niclas Svenningsen, Arnold Schwarzenegger, António Guterres, Kyra Gantois, Adélaïde Charlier and Anuna De Wever, a list that mixes people close to the story with internationally known public figures. Nathan Grossman is the only credited director.
Context & significance
I Am Greta is catalogued under biography and documentary, and it is a co-production of Germany, Sweden and the United States. Its approach is observational: the story is told by staying close to one person over a period in which her circumstances change very quickly, from a single student sitting alone to a figure addressed by crowds. That makes it a record of a specific, well-documented stretch of recent history, the months in which school strikes for the climate spread from one Swedish student to young people in many places. Among general audiences the documentary has been well received.
Watching I Am Greta on Ktime
I Am Greta can be watched on K-Time by signing in to an account; the page you are reading is open to everyone without a login. K-Time is a streaming service made for Persian speakers outside Iran, so browsing, searching and the player itself are all presented in Farsi.