"Gaslit" is a production that debuted at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival in February and won the award for Best Documentary. The film will be screened locally this weekend at two events. It follows actor and activist Jane Fonda across Texas and the Gulf Coast, and takes a critical look at the liquefied natural gas industry.
HPR spoke with Katie Camosy, director of the film, about how the film came to be.
Interview Highlights
On finding inspiration for the film
KATIE CAMOSY: About four years ago, Jane and I went in person down to the Gulf Coast, down to Port Arthur, Texas, and we met a man named John Beard, who's in "Gaslit," and we learned about these LNG terminals. You know, these liquefied natural gas — we don't like the term natural, but fracked gas — terminals, and it was right next to this plastic production and all this other industry. And that really was the start of it.
Jane and I were really shocked by what we saw, by all the pollution, by the health impacts, and of course the climate impacts, and we started a project where we met all these different communities and individuals living along the Gulf Coast, and that eventually became "Gaslit."
On what the film explores
CAMOSY: We're really talking about a lot of misinformation, and this is happening at different levels. So in the film, you're going to see people across the political divide, from all walks of life, but who all have a similar story: That when industry wants to come in or near your community, they make a lot of promises. And what these people found is that those promises were not fulfilled.
So some of those promises were about, you know, we're going to keep the air and the water and everything clean. We care about the environment. And then you'll hear from people like Sharon Wilson and Diane Wilson and all these people who have found that that's not true, but these companies can afford to pay the fines if they do go over, you know, the pollution limits... The reason to make it is really for people, which is most of us, who have industry already in our communities or wanting to come in, especially like with what is happening in Hawaiʻi right now, and to kind of let them have a reality check.
On what the film aims to do
CAMOSY: What I hope people get out of it is hearing from community members and folks they might relate to. So, you know, this has a lot of different people in it, including ranchers in Texas and shrimpers and oystermen in Louisiana, people that you might not think are spending time with environmentalists, and I kind of like that, you know, unlikely allies who might disagree on things, but can agree on this...
What I've really heard from people who live around here is they're investing so much really to keep us in this age of fossil fuels. You know, they're trying to lock in the countries who are buying the LNG from the Gulf. You know, they want these 10-, 20-year contracts. So, you know, I hope that in addition to hearing what the companies have to say, what the PR firms have to say, I think it's important to hear from folks who've lived it and kind of see what their life is like before making a decision that is this significant.
This story aired on The Conversation on Sept. 9, 2026. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. Annabelle Ink adapted this story for the web.
