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ABOUT
shock the grid
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Founders
Director: Cody Rogers
Cody McLeod Rogers is an American Filmmaker, Director, Producer, Screenwriter, and Composer from Coal City, Illinois, now based in NYC. He is known for Next at the Kennedy Center (2022) Broadway’s Leading Ladies (2025) and The Plum Game (2025). Rogers started his filmmaking journey at age 16 and has been telling stories about climate change and the human condition ever since.
Executive Producer: Max Rubin
Max Rubin is an advocate who has exposed and overcome barriers to low-income solar projects in Washington, DC, and advanced clean energy deployment with the Biden White House and Federal Government. Max founded the Energy Democracy Coalition, an organization that has inspired Shock the Grid’s development and impact campaign
Executive Producer: Eli D-G
Eli Duncan-Gilmour is a former United States Department of Energy Innovator Fellow, a screenwriter, and a Producer on Shock the Grid. Eli has worked with Tribal nations across the country on energy advocacy, founded multiple national organizations, and currently works as a Community Partnerships Manager at Greenlight America.
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MAKING
shock the grid
Our story began in 2021, when Max Rubin founded the Energy Democracy Coalition (EDCO) to investigate why progress had stalled on climate action. Max was inspired by his college friends: Cody Rogers, a filmmaker passionate about environmentalism, and Eli Duncan-Gilmour, a grassroots organizer who thought that clean energy could benefit the lives of ordinary people.
The three of us believed that a documentary film could flip the script on climate change, so we built a team of volunteers, started fundraising, and began to interview clean energy innovators across the country.
At first, our shoots felt like a collection of distinct, local stories, and we struggled to connect the dots into a single narrative. Instead of getting closer to a finished picture, we were unraveling strings that led us hundreds of years into the past.
But the deeper we went into history, the more our questions found answers. We realized that the great, unwritten chapter of energy advocacy took place before anyone knew what climate change was: Previous generations of Americans reshaped the electric grid, proving that local action can create nationwide change.
In the history of the electric grid, we found a story that gave us hope for the future. That story is Shock the Grid.
But we need your help: your partnership or investment will be critical to finishing our film.
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