"I cannot believe the fantastic selection and must sees of this week. What a fantastic thing to have available to us.
Thank you - Mary
Here are our top 15 most popular videos and headlines from the past week as decided by our community.
In a brewing scandal that should shock and trouble all of us, Exxon silenced us this week. We put together a nationally crowdfunded PSA , promoted by thousands online who threw in a dollar or a click or both in favor of two simple ideas: we should be able to get the word out about the most pressing issue of our time, climate change, on television primetime; and we should be able to demand that our tax dollars stop being used to fund oil, gas, and coal. We had already aired the ad...
Other98.com
Hemenway is a frequent teacher, consultant and lecturer on permaculture and ecological design throughout the U.S. and other countries. His writing has appeared in magazines such as Natural Home, Whole Earth Review and American Gardener. He is an adjunct professor in the School of Graduate Education at Portland State University, a Scholar-in-Residence at Pacific University, and a biologist consultant for the Biomimicry Guild.
Presentation - 61 min
Join acclaimed director Velcrow Ripper on a journey deep inside the global revolution of the heart that is erupting around the planet. Humanity is waking up to the fact that the dominant system of power is failing to provide us with health, happiness or meaning. The resulting crisis has become the catalyst for a profound transformation: millions of people are deciding that enough is enough -- the time has come to create a new world, a world that works for all life. "What the film...
Trailer - 3 min
Think about it: None of us called for genetic manipulation of seeds. Not one of us said, yes, this new technology will benefit me, my family, and my community. Yet today most of us are eating them, while kept completely in the dark as to the hazards we may be facing - for ourselves, our children, and the farming ecosystems on which our lives depend.
Short Film - 7 min
Women have complained, justly, about the behavior of “macho” men. But despite their he-man pretensions and their captivation by masculine heroes of sports, war, and the Old West, most men are now entirely accustomed to obeying and currying the favor of their bosses. Because of this, of course, they hate their jobs–they mutter...
C4ss.org
Moms Against Climate Change believe that our children will pay the greatest price if the world's political leaders fail to take urgent and decisive action on global warming.
Short Film - 2 min
‘Mindless, violent thugs, hell-bent on sowing chaos.’ That’s the kind of press anarchists often get. Uri Gordon provides a more sympathetic take on a growing yet still little understood political movement. I must have been eight or nine years old when I first heard the a-word. I don’t remember the context, but I do remember asking my mother what ‘anarchists’ were. She said: anarchists are people who want to destroy everything, and rebuild it all from...
Newint.org
As regular readers of this blog know, I have in previous posts commented on hunter-gatherers' playfulness ; their playful religious practices ; their playful approach toward productive work ; their non-directive childrearing methods ; and their children's playful ways of educating themselves . In all of those posts I emphasized the egalitarian, non-hierarchical nature of hunter-gatherer society. In today's post I present three theories as to how hunter-gatherers maintained...
Psychologytoday.com
An epic rumination on the nature of modern human existence -Maryland Film Festival At the core of humankind's ethos is an ongoing struggle to come to terms with the impermanence of self. Reconvergence offers an intriguing exploration of mortality, consciousness and identity in the modern age from the perspectives of four distinct characters: a naturalist, a neuroscientist, a poet and a historian. The combination of their separate journeys creates a rich tapestry that weaves together...
Trailer - 2 min
Everyday Rebellion is a documentary about the power of the peaceful protests and the new forms of civil disobedience in a time of global upheaval. Featuring Femen , The Yes Men, Srdja Popovic , Reverend Billy And The Stop Shopping Gospel Choir, John Jackson, Monica Hunken , Amin Husain , Pamela Brown, and many more. Due for release at the end of 2013.
Trailer - 4 min
At a time when many are disillusioned with big banks and big business, and growing inequity in our country, employee ownership offers a real solution for workers and communities. Shift Change is a new documentary that highlights worker-owned enterprises in North America and in Mondragon, Spain. The film couldn’t be more timely, as 2012 has been declared by the U.N. as the “International Year of the Cooperative.” Take a look at the preview and please share your comments...
Trailer - 7 min
Seeing gurneys of babies trundled through the chiaroscuro of old black-and-white footage at the start of Scott Noble’s Human Resources, the gurneys in the tunnels of God only knows what kind of institution, the viewer does well to brace herself for the coming onslaught. The piano accompaniment is not so much music as it is the hammering of wires in the industrial mode, a harbinger of doom. And as it turns out, there is nothing in the film to save us from its earliest suggestion of...
Counterpunch.org
In 2008, the world’s food system began to fall apart. However, threatened with hunger, rich countries have started buying up and leasing fertile tracts of the developing world. With 60% of all arable land in the world in Africa, this is where investors have firmly set their sights. In Mali, 75% of the population are farmers, but rich, land-hungry nations like China and Saudi Arabia are leasing Mali’s land in order to turn large areas into agribusiness farms. Many...
Documentary - 58 min
The Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship commissioned ITN to make this short film to look at some of the key features of a Steiner School including: - how Steiner Schools nurture spiritual development in keeping with the cultural setting of the school and without being tied to a particular faith; - the emphasis on "doing" to complement academic learning; - how the absence of testing in the younger years nurtures enthusiasm for learning; - the importance of quietness and contemplation...
Short Film - 11 min
Conservative billionaires used a secretive funding route to channel nearly $ 120m ( £77m ) to more than 100 groups casting doubt about the science behind climate change , the Guardian has learned. The funds, doled out between 2002 and 2010, helped build a vast network of thinktanks and activist groups working to a single purpose: to redefine climate change from neutral scientific fact to a highly polarising "wedge issue" for hardcore conservatives. The...
Guardian.co.uk
Become a Films For Action Editor -- Help Us Rate Member Submissions
Join us for an experiment in participatory media. Our site is designed to allow members to rate content up or down to determine its prominence on the site. We're now getting several member submissions in our video library every day, so we need everyone's help reviewing and rating content.
Here's a Quick Guide:
5 Stars: Excellent, I'd share it with multiple friends and re-share it later
4 Stars: Great, I'd definitely share it
3 Stars: Good ideas, support the message but limited appeal. Might not share.
2 Stars: Ok. Support the message but the presentation was lacking. Would not share.
1 Star: Archive this. Inappropriate for the site. Duplicate content. Lacks credibility.
How Does Content Get Sorted?
5-4 star content gets featured on the homepage and stays in the default "Best & Unrated" filter on the content browsing pages. They will also appear higher up the list when sorting content by "highest rated."
3-2 star content goes to the "All Member" content filter while 3 star content shows up across the site under "Related" content on all details pages.
1 star content gets hidden and is accessible via the "Sort by: Hidden" drop down.
The usefulness of the site as a high-quality resource depends on setting our standards high, so try not to feel bad for rating a video or headline with a good message 3 or 2 stars if the presentation or quality isn't up to par.
Thanks everyone!
Finally, we'd like to welcome all our newest members this week!
If you're new to Films For Action, below are 3 of our most popular features. They're also 3 of the best links to share with your friends, giving folks new to the site the best immediate sense of what we're all about. Regularly sharing these alternative perspectives online is also one of the best ways to help amplify the power and potential of decentralized, citizen-distributed media.
Want to help spread the word?
Email this newsletter to 5-10 friends and encourage them to sign up as a member of the site to start receiving our weekly newsletter - distilled and refined multiple times to provide the best gems from across the alternative media each week.
And of course, if you find a great video, news headline or action idea, we encourage you to add it to the site. You can also publish original writings. This site is powered by all of us, so it will become what we make it.
Cheers! - Tim Hjersted
