When Scott Roberts and Jeremy Wagner, co-directors of the documentary GasHole , read a letter to the editor in a Northern California newspaper, they began a two-and-a-half-year mission that took them across America and, now, on a 40-city tour of their film. On Sunday, Cary will be included as one of these cities.
In the letter, a man who used to dragrace at an airstrip in the 1940s “remembered meeting a guy who drove up in a 1946 Buick Roadmaster,” Roberts said. Although it was a common model for its time, there was something that made it different from the other cars on the strip. The man had invented, installed and was using a water carburetor that allowed his Roadmaster to run 100 miles on a gallon.
Shell Oil Company bought the rights to the invention; although the inventor could keep his, he could not build any more.
“Jeremy and I thought that was an interesting story and we wanted to look into it, to why we don’t have this. We talked to people and investigated and got documents,” Roberts said of the film, which is narrated by Peter Gallagher. “One door opened two doors which opened three doors. Two and a half years later we got GasHole .”
In talking to politicians, oil executives, alternative fuel specialists, and even the man who wrote the letter to the editor, the co-directors made “a concerted effort to stay down the middle,” said Wagner, who also wrote, produced and edited the film. “This was our first documentary. We weren’t activists when we started the project.
“For us, it’s not a republican or democrat issue. There’s no republican pump or democrat pump. It’s all the same pump,” he said. “We present the facts as accurately as we found them.”
In the self-financed venture, Roberts said the two attempted to take a look at the history of oil prices, the future of alternative fuels, and why the other patents and inventions that, “for whatever reason, never came to market.”
“Then we take a look at it from a consumer’s point of view. Why we, as consumers, are hesitant to embrace alternative fuel,” he said. “We got to D.C. and talk to politicians on both side of the aisle — both republican and democrat — and find out why it’s so difficult to get any legislation passed that will help us get off our dependence on foreign oil.”
After looking into what solutions, such as hydrogen fuel cells and biodiesel, are available, Roberts said resistance to legislation stems not from “a technological problem. It’s a social problem. It’s an economic problem. It’s a political problem.”
And it’s a problem that spurs discussion, in which Roberts and Wagner get involved once the 101-minute film has concluded.
“People get so fired up afterward,” Roberts said. He urges those interested in attending to purchase tickets online ahead of time — they had to turn away about 50 people in Louisville.
Once their tour has ended, Roberts said they plan to release the film in the major market this fall, followed by a DVD release.
“This is their chance to see the film before anyone else in the country. It’s their chance to really put us on the spot and ask what we’ve learned,” Wagner said. “This is one of the most important issues affecting people today. We feel like our film can offer help to people.”
GasHole is playing in Cary at the Galaxy Cinema at 3 p.m. and 5:30 p.m.
