2025: The Long Hot Winter - Screening Shorts

Documentary filmmakers in the year 2025 interview diverse groups of people from London about their first Christmas heatwave. They share their thoughts and feelings on the unseasonal weather, such as enjoying water fights and the change from the typical cold and rain, only occasionally mentioning the down sides – and what might yet come.

This mockumentary offers an initially entertaining but gradually chilling vision of a future that seems all too possible.

Clip Details

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Country of Origin: United Kingdom

Medium/Content: Colour, Sound, Live Action, Fiction

Themes: Culture/Society, Danger/Fear, Food/Environment, Health

Clip Length: 09:25

Age Group: S1-S3, S4-S6

Classroom Activities

01 Critical

How do you know this is a documentary (albeit a fake one) rather than a live-action drama? What non-fiction film features can you identify that would not be found in a fictional short film?
Watch the opening of the film again, until 01:39. What tone and mood are established here? How are the tone and mood established?
Continue watching until 03:05. What do you notice about the costume colour in these first few minutes? Why do you think these colours have been chosen?
The saxophonist appears as a recurring motif throughout the film. What do you think he represents/symbolises?
Watch the ending montage (from 07:38). What images are we shown? Why? How do they combine with the music to create a solemn tone?

02 Cultural

Three of the groups we see talking at the start are a mixed group of teenagers, four retired women and three women in their early 20s. What are their different attitudes to the heatwave? Do they all agree? What point is the filmmaker making about these groups within society?
The opening of the film seems quite lighthearted, but from 03:05 to 07:37 the filmmaker starts to introduce the darker side of it with several smaller details. Which ones can you spot and what do they suggest?
Watch the sequence from 05:01 to 07:37. Some class differences are suggested here – what are they? There is a suggestion that the higher-class family are better equipped to cope with the climate problems: is this a fair representation? Why (not)?
Watch the sequence from 06:50 to 07:37. What disruption do you think is happening on the street below? What might be the cause(s) of this? What is suggested by the family’s response to it?
There have been many films, TV shows, books, articles, adverts etc. on the topic of climate change over the past few years. Which ones can you name? Do you think any of them have been effective in informing their audience and changing their behaviour? Do you think ‘2025: The Long Hot Winter’ is successful in doing this?

03 Creative

WRITE

Write a letter to someone in a position of authority (an MP or MSP, the CEO of an organisation etc.) telling them why and how they should be taking action to tackle climate change.
Write a poem that sums up the final images of the film.

FILMMAKING

Make a class documentary outlining your own fears relating to climate change, or your solutions for the climate challenge. Find out if there are any competitions running that you could enter your film into: e.g. Young Reporters for the Environment.

DRAW

Make a series of posters as a class, each one presenting an action we could be taking to tackle the climate challenge.

DEBATE

There are several individuals and groups taking action about climate change. Some use words and some use actions: whose method is most effective?

SCIENCE

Find out climate problems we might be facing by 2025 if no changes are made.