From what we're hearing, the world premiere of the vaping documentary ‘A Billion Lives' was a rousing success. The stinging rebuke against big tobacco and the anti-vaping lobby got its first public showing at DocEdge, New Zealand's annual documentary film festival. The reviews so far? Nothing short of fantastic.

Syndicated film critic Ryan Jay called it “brilliant,” saying it “powerfully delivers an urgent message” that will “frustrate and enlighten you.” Lucire Magazine publisher Jack Yan said it was “beautifully shot and scored,” and said that it shows “why so many citizens are wary of their governments and multinational corporations.”

Even local media got into the fray. #1 New Zealand Top 40 radio station “The Hits” posted a full interview with filmmaker Aaron Biebert, adding in the teaser for the piece that “whether you smoke or not you are being misled.”

A Billion Lives Movie Trailer:

With such critical acclaim it's no surprise that the team behind the movie was floored by the excitement. In an email to supporters, the team thanked everyone for their support and teased that even more news was ahead.

When & Where Can I See It?

At this time, only two other showings are officially scheduled. The next stop is Warsaw, Poland for the Global Forum on Nicotine, where the film will be shown on June 16. After that, it's back down under to Australia for the Australian premiere on July 11, where the film is set to be shown at the Melbourne Film Festival.

No other dates are official yet, but the film's producers say that they've been in contact with people offering support for large-scale premieres in Los Angeles, Dallas, Milwaukee, Paris, Toronto, Washington DC, and St. Louis. On its Facebook page, the team has responded to questions about when the film will be available globally, saying it hopes to have it in movie theaters by “this summer.”

“We need to do this together, and we need to do it the right way,” Biebert and his team said of their plans for future screenings.

So where does A Billion Lives go from here? Other than the obvious work ahead of them to promote the movie and drum up interest, it appears that the team plans to do a lot of advocacy work on behalf of the vaping community. Promoters attended a rally in New Jersey to protest the state's strict, proposed anti-vaping laws according to a Facebook post, and other entries on their page show that they're doing all that they can to spread to word about the movie.

We'll keep you updated here as soon as we learn more about future plans and showings. But it's all good news so far, that's for sure!

Hopefully some of this positive sentiment will eventually translate into changes to the deeming FDA regulations, which start being implemented on August 26th.