Dayne Pratzky is a former construction worker and one-time pig shooter who escaped Sydney city and bought a small block of land near Tara, 300km west of Brisbane, where he hoped to fulfil his dream of building a house and starting a family in the quiet of the bush. 

Then the gas companies drove down his driveway and told him they were drilling.

“We’re going to sink a well down the back of your place,” they said to him. 

“And if you don’t like it, there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Frackman is a story of an ordinary Australian trying to protect himself from the power and influence of companies that are putting money before all else in the battle for coal seam gas (CSG) profits.

Not your typical superhero film, Frackman has taken Australian art house cinemas, local halls and theatres by storm, and will be screened on one night only at the Picture Show Man Cinema in Merimbula on April 27.

At the heart of the film is the extraction of methane gas from deep below the earth’s surface, which has created the largest social movement Australia has seen in decades.

Around 437million hectares of Australia is covered by coal seam gas licences or applications, says the films official trailer, along with confronting images of children with nosebleeds and dam water catching alight.

The gas industry-funded Energy Resource Information Centre says on its website that “farming and gas exploration and development can co-exist”, but it is hard to reconcile that with the effects of CSG on everyday Australians shown in the film that has been five years in the making. 

The film’s co-producer Simon Nasht, who is working in partnership with entrepreneur Dick Smith, said he approached the ABC to help promote the film, but it was reluctant to do so after being “monstered” by the $200billion industry. 

In the end a standard theatrical release wasn’t a viable option, so the company has relied so far on crowdsourcing through the tugg.com.au website, which allows people to request that theatres screen films.

Locally, The Picture Show Man Cinema will not be able to screen the film without a minimum of pre-sale tickets being sold.

“So far we’ve sold 17 tickets, so we need to sell 40 more by the 19th of April,” promoter Patricia Mills said.

“I’m promoting this film because I really want to see it and it wasn’t being screened in this area,” she said.

If you would like to purchase a pre-sale ticket for the film’s screening at the Picture Show Man Cinema on Monday, April 27, at 6.30pm, visit this website.