Documentaries Global Change

'The Economics of Happiness' features a chorus of voices from six continents calling for systemic economic change. The documentary describes a world moving simultaneously in two opposing directions. On the one hand, government and big business continue to promote globalization and the consolidation of corporate power. At the same time, all around the world people are resisting those policies, demanding a re-regulation of trade and finance - and, far from the old institutions of power, they're starting to forge a very different future. Communities are coming together to re-build more human scale, ecological economies based on a new paradigm - an economics of localization.

MONEY and LIFE is a passionate and inspirational essay-style documentary that makes a provocative proposition: can we see the economic crisis not as a disaster, but as a tremendous opportunity? An optimistic film steeped in appreciation for human ingenuity, MONEY and LIFE is a respectful invitation to consider questions critical to all our well-being: How can we move beyond being merely consumers, debtors and creditors, and put money in service to what we really care about as citizens, as human beings? Can we design a monetary circulation system that fosters democratic equality? What does it really mean to make a living? MONEY and LIFE empowers each of us to respond to the fundamental issues of our time and participate in the emerging new economy.

The only remedy for disconnecting people from the natural world is connecting them to it again.

Documentary that looks at the concept of the corporation throughout recent history up to its present-day dominance.

Within Reach explores one couple's pedal-powered search for a place to call home. Mandy and Ryan gave up their jobs, cars, and traditional houses to 'bike-pack' 6500 miles around the USA seeking sustainable community. Rather than looking in a traditional neighborhood, they begin to recognize that community is the secret ingredient to living sustainably on this planet. Along the way, they explored 100 ecovillages, cohousing communities, co-op houses, communes, transition towns, and their own principles and commitment. In the end they return to the timeless truth that community is people; they are everywhere; and there is room for everyone. After circling the country and interviewing hundreds of Americans, they have found that by reaching within, sustainable community is within reach. In fact, it's already here.

A middle-class white guy comes to grips with Peak Oil, Climate Change, Mass Extinction, Population Overshoot and the demise of the American culture.

An unflattering look inside America's corporate controlled food industry.

What is democracy? Freedom, equality, participation? Everyone has his or her own definition. Across the world, 120 countries now have at least the minimum trappings of democracy - the freedom to vote for all citizens. But for many, this is just the beginning not the end. Following decades of US-backed dictatorships, civil wars and devastating structural adjustment policies in the South, and corporate control, electoral corruption, and fraud in the North, representative politics in the Americas is in crisis. Citizens are now choosing to redefine democracy under their own terms: local, direct, and participatory. In 1989, the Brazilian Worker's Party altered the concept of local government when they installed participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre, allowing residents to participate directly in the allocation of city funds. Ten years later, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was swept into power with the promise of granting direct participation to the Venezuelan people; who have now formed tens of thousands of self-organized communal councils. In the Southern Cone, cooperative and recuperated factory numbers have grown, and across the Americas social movements and constitutional assemblies are taking authority away from the ruling elites and putting power into the hands of their members and citizens. Beyond Elections is a journey that takes us across the Americas to attempt to answer one of the most important questions of our time: What is Democracy?

An anti-western propaganda film about the influences of American visual and consumption culture on the rest of the world, as told from a North Korean perspective.

A band of Latin American activist economists sets out to change their continent, teaming up with impoverished women to challenge accepted notions on how to eradicate poverty. The women become empowered economic and political engines of their communities. If taken to scale, could 20 million women upend a continent?

In the lead up to the largest climate mobilization in history, DISRUPTION weaves together the science, politics and psychology of our collective inaction to address the greatest ecological, social and moral challenge of our time. A who's who of climate and social justice crusaders deliver a stirring and clarion call for this unique tipping point moment - we're the first generation to feel the consequences of climate change, and the last generation that can do something about it.

'Crossroads: Labor Pains of a New Worldview' is a documentary exploring the depths of the current human condition and the emergence of an integrated worldview. Weaving together insights and findings from biology, psychology, network science, systems science, business, culture and media, the film reveals the inner workings of the human experience in the 21st century, urging viewers to step out of the box and challenge their own assumptions about who we really are, and why we do what we do.

OCCUPY LOVE captures the heart of the movement of movements that is sweeping the planet in response to today's economic and environmental crises. 'Philosopher-filmmaker' Velcrow Ripper travels to history-making hot spots, asking the question, 'How can crisis create a love story?' Scenes include the Egyptian revolution in Tahrir Square, Spain's Indignado movement, Occupy Wall Street NYC, The Maple Spring in Quebec, and indigenous activists at the Alberta Tar Sands. The film explores the aspects of this arising that take the form of what Martin Luther King Jr. called 'Love in action.' Woven throughout is a deep exploration on the meaning and importance of 'public love' - the love of humanity, the love of the planet.

In a world teetering on the edge of self destruction, award-winning filmmaker Velcrow Ripper sets out on a unique pilgrimmage. Visiting the 'Ground Zeros' of the planet, he asks if it's possible to find hope in the darkest moments of human history. Staring directly into the face of war, tragedy and instability, Ripper travels to the minefields of Cambodia; war-torn Afghanistan; the toxic wasteland of Bhopal; post-9/11 New York; Bosnia; Hiroshima, Israel and Palestine. This unflinching documentary captures his five-year odyssey to discover if humanity can transform the 'scared' into the 'sacred'. Confronting horror and heartbreak around the world, Ripper meets those who have suffered first-hand. And in each place, he unearths unforgettable stories of survival, ritual, and recovery. Scared Sacred deftly weaves together haunting and luminous footage with words, memories, and an evocative soundscape to create an exquisite portrait of a search for meaning in times of turmoil. With an engaging, first-person narrative, this beautiful film reveals that the darkness of catastrophe can be illuminated with hope.

Using hidden cameras and never-before-seen footage, Earthlings chronicles the day-to-day practices of the largest industries in the world, all of which rely entirely on animals for profit.

The series shows an optimistic vision of the world if we apply science & technology for the benefit of all people and the environment.

Edible City is a feature-length documentary film that tells the stories of extraordinary people who are digging their hands into the dirt, working to transform their communities and doing something truly revolutionary: growing local Good Food systems that are socially just, environmentally sound, and economically resilient.

A journey, reaching to the past to understand the origins of the catastrophic environmental transitions we now face. Over two years, director Matt Anderson traveled 16,000 miles to document firsthand our modern industrial world and the environmental destruction in its wake. In the process, he discovered exciting strategies to help humanity transcend the coming ecological and psychological crisis. Some of today's most progressive thinkers, from anthropologists and bio-architects to psychologists and journalists collectively recreate a story of humanity and the history of Earth, illuminating a desperately needed new path for us to take. Fall and Winter is a survival guide for the 21st Century.

2012: Time For Change is a documentary feature that presents ways to transform our unsustainable society into a regenerative planetary culture. This can be achieved through a personal and global change of consciousness and the systemic implementation of ecological design.

Thought-provoking documentary on war propaganda: how governments manipulate the facts and how most media let them get away with it.

This video shows how the foreign policy interests of American political elites-working in combination with Israeli public relations stratgies-influence US news reporting about the Middle East conflict. Combining American and British TV news clips with observations of analysts, journalists and political activists, Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land provides a brief historical overview, a striking media comparison, and an examination of factors that have distorted U.S. media coverage and, in turn, American public opinion.

The Crisis Civilization is a documentary feature film investigating how global crises like ecological disaster, financial meltdown, dwindling oil reserves, terrorism and food shortages are converging symptoms of a single, failed global system. Proving that 'another world' is not merely possible, but on its way.

A feature length documentary work which presents a case for a needed transition out of the current socioeconomic monetary paradigm which governs the entire world society.

The documentary, "The Power of Community - How Cuba Survived Peak Oil," was inspired when Faith Morgan and Pat Murphy took a trip to Cuba through Global Exchange in August, 2003. That year Pat had begun studying and speaking about worldwide peak oil production. In May Pat and Faith attended the second meeting of The Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas, a European group of oil geologists and scientists, which predicted that mankind was perilously close to having used up half of the world's oil resources. When they learned that Cuba underwent the loss of over half of its oil imports and survived, after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990, the couple wanted to see for themselves how Cuba had done this. During their first trip to Cuba, in the summer of 2003, they traveled from Havana to Trinidad and through several other towns on their way back to Havana. They found what Cubans call "The Special Period" astounding and Cuban's responses very moving. Faith found herself wanting to document on film Cuba's successes so that what they had done wouldn't be lost. Both of them wanted to learn more about Cuba's transition from large farms or plantations and reliance on fossil-fuel-based pesticides and fertilizers, to small organic farms and urban gardens. Cuba was undergoing a transition from a highly industrial society to a sustainable one. Cuba became, for them, a living example of how a country can successfully traverse what we all will have to deal with sooner or later, the reduction and loss of finite fossil fuel resources. In the fall of 2003 Pat and Faith had the opportunity to return to Cuba to study its agriculture. It was a wonderful trip. They saw much of the island, met many farmers and urban gardeners, scientists and engineers - traveling more than 1700 miles, from one end of Cuba to the other. It was all they had hoped for and more. In 2004 Community Service, Inc. (CSI) began raising money and organizing a third trip (October), to film in Cuba. Greg Green, cinematographer and director of The End of Suburbia documentary, was the chief videographer. Faith Morgan shot the second camera, John Morgan did still photography and Megan Quinn, Outreach Director of CSI, was sound director. After their return from Cuba, they secured assistance and direction from Tom Blessing IV, producer, and Eric Johnson, post-production supervisor and editor. Together, they bring over 40 years combined experience in film and television production. The goals of this film are to give hope to the developed world as it wakes up to the consequences of being hooked on oil, and to lift American's prejudice of Cuba by showing the Cuban people as they are. The filmmakers do this by having the people tell their story on film. It's a story of their dedication to independence and triumph over adversity, and a story of cooperation and hope. Several Cubans expressed the belief that living on an island, with its natural boundaries, breeds awareness that there are limits to natural resources. Everyone who has worked on the documentary hopes that, seeing this film, people will also see the world on which we live, as another, much larger, island.