Denial: The Dad That Wanted to Save the World

Denial follows the story of Dave Hallquist, CEO of a Vermont electric utility, seen through the lens of his filmmaker son Derek. As a self-described ‘closet environmentalist’, Hallquist is dedicated to addressing the way electricity use in America contributes to climate change. As Hallquist struggles to build the kind of transparent company whose honest approach can get stakeholders to accept the realities of how we generate and deliver electricity, he realizes he must apply that same transparency to his personal life and reveals to his son a lifelong secret. Dave Hallquist, who is presented as a chainsaw-wielding, hardhat-wearing CEO in a maledominated industry, is a woman inside. Now Derek’s family must face facts that feel far more immediate than the melting of the polar ice caps. And denial emerges as a common theme linking all of these issues. Ultimately, the personal and the societal come together as Derek learns that his father, newly named Christine, is still indeed his father – and that Christine’s unique perspective as the first American transgender CEO to transition in office, may be just what the limiting, binary world view on energy and the environment needs.