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Nowtopia: A Documentary About Economic Alternatives
Nowtopia: A Documentary About Economic Alternatives (2020)
The term ‘Nowtopia’ is increasingly used by both activists and academics to describe a variety of interconnected tendencies. It can, for instance, apply to seeking freedom outside the confines of wage labour, or the creation of liberated common space in the here and now.
32 min
Digital Wampum: Testimony of the Iroquois | 8-Part Series
Digital Wampum: Testimony of the Iroquois | 8-Part Series
 Digital Wampum is a series of 8 short, testimonial films, on the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois.)
51 min
Why Do We Make Life So Hard? | Jon Jondai
Why Do We Make Life So Hard? | Jon Jondai
Jon Jondai shares his life story of trying to find success in the city only to turn around and come back home to live a life of freedom. 
10 min
Worker Cooperatives: Expanding Democracy In The Workplace
Worker Cooperatives: Expanding Democracy In The Workplace
For the vast majority of people, work is miserable, tedious, and meaningless. It doesn't have to be that way. Expanding workplace democracy through worker co-ops is a step in the right direction. This video was written in part by a Second Thought patron! Big thanks to Thought...
11 min
Identity & Empathy | Ayishat Akanbi
Identity & Empathy | Ayishat Akanbi
Ayishat Akanbi is a stylist and cultural commentator. Her monologue 'The Problem with Wokeness' went viral a couple of years ago. She argues that modern social justice movements, or 'wokeness', often creates division, and harms those it is intended to help.
63 min
The Fight Of Their Lives
The Fight Of Their Lives (2020)
The Fight Of Their Lives documents the citizens fight against a Hazardous Waste Incinerator in Granville County, North Carolina in 1990. But it was more than just a single county's fight, it was a statewide fight that garnered national attention. It shows the many faces...
235 min
Ten Days of Charles Eisenstein
Ten Days of Charles Eisenstein
A Collection of Tweets That Fell on Deaf Ears
Josh Liveright
Transformation Diaries
Transformation Diaries
Transformation Diaries is a platform for the questions of our times. From love, sexuality and social organization, all the way to our relation to the biosphere and the metaphysical, we explore the underlying sets of beliefs and assumptions at the wellspring of culture —...
30 min
The Banker Ladies
The Banker Ladies
Created by the Diverse Solidarity Economies Collective, The Banker Ladies tells the stories of Ginelle, Aisha, and Mabinty, three Black women in Toronto creating diverse financial services for their communities through Rotating Saving and Credit Associations (ROSCAs).
21 min
What's a Colloquium? An Oral History of the Natural Building Movement
What's a Colloquium? An Oral History of the Natural Building Movement (2020)
A small band of natural building enthusiasts and outlaws met in a field over 20 years ago at something they called a ‘colloquium’. The movement they created has grown uncontrollably ever since; reviving and innovating ancient building techniques and training thousands in the...
76 min
Madagasikara
Madagasikara (2020)
In 2009, fed up with increased poverty and widespread corruption, Madagascar's citizens took to the streets in protest. After the president was forced to resign, the international community terminated most foreign assistance to this chronically impoverished island nation...
85 min
Working Assumptions for White Activists on Eliminating Racism: Guidelines for Recruiting Other Whites as Allies
Working Assumptions for White Activists on Eliminating Racism: Guidelines for Recruiting Other Whites as Allies
Assume that all human beings desire warm, close relationships with each other. This is also true of you and of all other white people.    Assume that you are a regular white person (not an exceptional white person) and that all whites are good people, caring...
Ricky Sherover-Marcuse
The War on Crime Is Really a War on the Poor - a Civilized Society Would Simply Abolish Poverty
The War on Crime Is Really a War on the Poor - a Civilized Society Would Simply Abolish Poverty
Invest in people, not prisons.
Tim Hjersted
Miki Kashtan: Exiting the Either/Or Trap - Decision Making Beyond Consensus and Command / Control
Miki Kashtan: Exiting the Either/Or Trap - Decision Making Beyond Consensus and Command / Control
Are long, drawn-out consensus processes the only alternative to a rigid, hierarchical decision making model that reinforces unhealthy power dynamics? Trainer, facilitator and writer Miki Kashtan offers her powerful framework of Convergent Facilitation, which is a model of...
89 min
The Anarchist Commune in the Rainforest: Poole’s Land
The Anarchist Commune in the Rainforest: Poole’s Land
Manisha Krishnan travels to Poole's Land, an anarchist commune on the western edge of Canada to figure out what exactly is drawing young people to live on the periphery of society. She ventures into the rainforest and confronts a variety of her deepest fears, but ultimately...
31 min
Communities Of Hope: Discovering the Ecovillages of Europe
Communities Of Hope: Discovering the Ecovillages of Europe (2020)
COMMUNITIES OF HOPE is a film born from a quest to discover a regenerative culture.
29 min
Horizontal Governing - The Virtually Incorruptible Solution to Vertical Top Down Corruption
Horizontal Governing - The Virtually Incorruptible Solution to Vertical Top Down Corruption
Learn more at: https://utopiacornucopia.org/
8 min
The Carbon Rush
The Carbon Rush (2019) (trailer)
From indigenous rain forest dwellers having their way of life completely threatened, to dozens of Campesinos assassinated, to the livelihood of waste pickers at landfills taken away, THE CARBON RUSH travels across four continents and brings us up close to projects working...
2 min
The Answer of the Forests
The Answer of the Forests
If we stop to listen to the forests, what would they say? Perhaps they would tell us about community resilience, about cooperation, about finding strength in differences and about how to live in the present. Perhaps they would also remind us of all the things we have in...
4 min
Scaling up Permaculture in the City | Andrew Faust
Scaling up Permaculture in the City | Andrew Faust
Learn how to become more regionally resilient with bioregional economics and ecological city design.
35 min
No, You Don't Have to Admit You're Wrong to Apologize (And Other Apology Myths Debunked)
No, You Don't Have to Admit You're Wrong to Apologize (And Other Apology Myths Debunked)
Why are real, meaningful apologies so few and far between? What have we internalized about the meaning of apologizing?
Teri Lynn
How Permaculture Can Build Resilience and Meet Basic Needs During a Pandemic
How Permaculture Can Build Resilience and Meet Basic Needs During a Pandemic
As COVID-19 spreads, people are showing a growing interest in permaculture principles and techniques to heal their lives, communities and the planet.
Marina Martinez
Lifeboat Culture: Planning Future-Proof, ‘Too Small to Fail’ Communities
Lifeboat Culture: Planning Future-Proof, ‘Too Small to Fail’ Communities
Building a lifeboat culture is about taking action and preparing communities to be sustainable and functional in the face of a global, national or regional economic and environmental collapse. Unless we rapidly move through the stages of climate grief, from paralysis to...
Andrew Willner
The Problem Is the Solution: How Permaculture-Designed Household Isolation Can Lead to Retrosuburbia
The Problem Is the Solution: How Permaculture-Designed Household Isolation Can Lead to Retrosuburbia
As the COVID-19 pandemic first exploded across our globalised world, I found myself unsure of priorities in this time of pivotal change, even though I had been tracking information about Wuhan since January. Not because I didn’t know that a global pandemic of this scale was...
David Holmgren
Self-Taught: Life Stories From Self-Directed Learners
Self-Taught: Life Stories From Self-Directed Learners (2019)
Through the stories of six extraordinary individuals, Self-Taught explores what self-directed education means to them and the impact it has had on their lives, ambitions, work and beliefs.
77 min
Comparative Resilience: 8 Principles for Post-COVID Reconstruction
Comparative Resilience: 8 Principles for Post-COVID Reconstruction
This past weekend, a bright Georgetown undergraduate asked me how I squared my passion for localization with the theory of comparative advantage. For economics newbies, he was referring to David Ricardo’s argument that every community should find one product to specialize in...
Michael Shuman
NOTES FROM QUARANTINE
NOTES FROM QUARANTINE
NOTES FROM QUARANTINE
Josh Liveright
The Sequel: What Will Follow Our Troubled Civilisation?
The Sequel: What Will Follow Our Troubled Civilisation? (2020)
Opening with a powerful ‘deep time’ perspective, from the beginning of the Earth to our present moment, BAFTA-winning director Peter Armstrong's new film recognises the fundamental unsustainability of today’s society and dares to ask the big question: What will follow?
61 min
No New Normal
No New Normal
“May you live in interesting times." A curse once assigned Chinese origin, now thought to be apocryphal, is deceptively mild until you realize you have no resistance to a novel, viral load of interestingness. We feel like we can’t blink, yet our eyelids are getting very...
Stacco Troncoso
The Untold Truth about Our Social and Ecological Collapse, with Helena Norberg-Hodge
The Untold Truth about Our Social and Ecological Collapse, with Helena Norberg-Hodge
Many talk about climate change, but rare are those who dare to speak about its systemic, deeply-ingrained root cause.
11 min
Bernie Sanders Would Be Crazy to Drop Out Now. It Would Also Be Bad for Biden.
Bernie Sanders Would Be Crazy to Drop Out Now. It Would Also Be Bad for Biden.
Since Super Tuesday, one after the other, the arms of the corporate media and Democratic establishment have been calling for Bernie Sanders to drop out. While it is true that his path to victory has greatly narrowed (there’s no sugarcoating it), right now is not the time for...
Saib Bilaval
From Mutual Aid to Dual Power in the State of Emergency
From Mutual Aid to Dual Power in the State of Emergency
The COVID-19 public health crisis is rapidly devolving into a vast, multi-faceted crisis of social reproduction with no end in sight. How can we seize this moment to build dual power?
Woodbine
No Return to Normal: For a Post-Pandemic Liberation
No Return to Normal: For a Post-Pandemic Liberation
Today, new forms of solidarity, mutual aid, and common struggle are emerging in the pandemic. How will they shape tomorrow’s struggles for a post-capitalist world?
Max Haiven
Coronavirus Will Expose Capitalism Like Never Before
Coronavirus Will Expose Capitalism Like Never Before
“Coronavirus casts a light on every single part of our society. We will see the best of humanity and the worst of Capitalism” - Kevin Ovenden
6 min
Why Can't We Talk About Certain Topics Anymore?
Why Can't We Talk About Certain Topics Anymore?
Everybody's noticing how social and political conversations become more and more polarized, to the point you can hardly call it a conversation anymore. - Charles Eisenstein 
13 min
We Are All One
We Are All One
Love, Peace and the Interconnection of All Life
Ebrajm
Black Snow
Black Snow (2017)
Black Snow looks at the explosion at the Oaks Colliery in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, which despite being the world's worst industrial loss of life in the 19th century, was a tragedy that remained relatively unremembered until 2015, when a group of ex-miners, trade unionists...
23 min
Charles Eisenstein - Why We Need Community To Live In the New Story
Charles Eisenstein - Why We Need Community To Live In the New Story
In this excerpt from LOVE SCHOOL, author and visionary Charles Eisenstein speaks to the importance of surrounding ourselves with a supportive community that can give us the courage we need to step into the unknown, into new ways of being.
6 min
How to Turn Your Brain From Anger to Compassion
How to Turn Your Brain From Anger to Compassion
Attention is like a spotlight—whatever it shines on becomes brighter in the mind. This knowledge can help us build compassion, says Paul Gilbert.
Paul Gilbert
In Our Hands: Seeding Change
In Our Hands: Seeding Change (2017)
Food and farming is in crisis. In just over a decade we’ve lost more than 33,000 farms from our countryside, and alongside this, bad diet is now causing more health problems than smoking! The fundamental link between people, food and the very land we stand on is being broken...
68 min
Ten Steps That Transform Anger Into Compassionate Connection
Ten Steps That Transform Anger Into Compassionate Connection
Practicing Nonviolent Communication guides us to reframe the way we listen to others and express ourselves by focusing our consciousness on four areas: what we are observing, feeling, needing and what we are requesting to enrich our lives. In this context the word need...
Center for Nonviolent Communication
The Transformative Power of Trustbuilding: Towards a Culture of Shared Responsibility
The Transformative Power of Trustbuilding: Towards a Culture of Shared Responsibility
"The challenge of building trust across divides is universal and inescapable. Can we move from a culture of blame and avoidance to an acceptance of shared responsibility for a new future?" - Initiatives of Change International
Rob Corcoran
The Confederation as the Commune of Communes
The Confederation as the Commune of Communes
Confederalism as a revolutionary strategy provides us with the means to build and organize a radically democratic and egalitarian society at scale.
Debbie Bookchin, Sixtine van Outryve
The Four Levels of Action | Will Grant
The Four Levels of Action | Will Grant
Each of us is empowered to engage in solutions in a way that is not stressful or overwhelming. It is through the sheer numbers of individuals doing their part that we will see massive positive changes on our planet! - 
3 min
Films for Action's Patreon Rewards
Films For Action's Patreon Rewards
Films For Action's $5/mo+ supporters can watch all of the films below for free. Visit our Patreon page for details. 
Films For Action
Over 300 'How to Guides' to Help You Bring a More Beautiful World into Being
Over 300 'How to Guides' to Help You Bring a More Beautiful World into Being
We can create the more beautiful world we want for ourselves and future generations with a simple and powerful idea: "sharing"
Shareable
Fighting for Reforms Isn't Enough. It's Time We Reach for Prison Abolition.
Fighting for Reforms Isn't Enough. It's Time We Reach for Prison Abolition.
Our communities cannot be safe within a system that fights harm with greater harm.
Tanya Watkins
School Circles: Every Voice Matters
School Circles: Every Voice Matters (2018)
School Circles is an independent documentary that explores the practice of democratic schools in the Netherlands. The film shows students, teachers and staff members coming together to dialogue, discuss proposals, mediate conflicts and make decisions about their school life.
89 min
Planet Community: A 5-Part Series Exploring Cooperation in Action
Planet Community: A 5-Part Series Exploring Cooperation in Action (2019)
What happens when people work together to create solutions to the social, economic, and ecological issues we face today?
50 min
3 Essential Strategies for Integrating Life Experiences
3 Essential Strategies for Integrating Life Experiences
The tumbling dance of your thoughts, feelings, and sensations can polish the rough rocks of your life story into precious gemstones.
Teri Lynn
Collaboration: on the Edge of a New Paradigm?
Collaboration: on the Edge of a New Paradigm? (2015)
This documentary, which was produced and directed by Alfred Birkegaard and Katja Gry Birkegaard Carlsen, explores how the Internet is changing the way in which we do science and create knowledge. It takes the viewer on a journey from Danish biology papers all the way to...
56 min
Land Without Bread: the Green New Deal Forsakes America's Countryside
Land Without Bread: the Green New Deal Forsakes America's Countryside
Days after the heart-stopping Notre-Dame Cathedral fire in April, Swedish schoolgirl Greta Thunberg trained her eyes on the United Kingdom’s parliament and chastised its meager response to climate change. “I want you to panic,” the baby-faced sixteen-year-old quietly...
Catherine Tumber
COMMON NOTIONS: Handbook Not Required
COMMON NOTIONS: Handbook Not Required (2016)
Common Notions is a film about the Purple Thistle Centre, a youth-run arts and activism space in Vancouver, BC, and about education, learning, friendship, and youth liberation.
38 min
Planet Local Short Film Series - Part 1: Intro to the New Food Movement
Planet Local Short Film Series - Part 1: Intro to the New Food Movement
Every person on earth needs food every day. Every day food is tended, harvested, transported, stored, and served up on our tables. In a very real sense, food cannot be separated from life itself. And so it has been said that changing the way we grow and eat food is one of the...
56 min
Planet Local Short Film Series - Part 5: Challenges & Solutions
Planet Local Short Film Series - Part 5: Challenges & Solutions
Small farms around the world may be thriving, but farmers, particularly those just starting out, face a lot of challenges. Accessing affordable land is a BIG one, along with finding start-up capital, and competing with traditional producers in the market. But so are things...
83 min
Planet Local Short Film Series - Part 6: Ecovillages & Networks for New Farmers
Planet Local Short Film Series - Part 6: Ecovillages & Networks for New Farmers
For young people not raised on the land, getting into farming can seem daunting. Even for people who have worked on farms before, it is easy to feel isolated and overwhelmed when it comes to starting a farm of one’s own.
45 min
Planet Local Short Film Series - Part 7: A Little More Inspiration
Planet Local Short Film Series - Part 7: A Little More Inspiration
As we’ve seen, the food system is broken.
36 min
A Charter for the Social Solidarity Economy
A Charter for the Social Solidarity Economy
This charter was originally published in Spanish as a rallying call for Social Solidarity Economy initiatives within the Spanish territory. We have translated it to share its principles with English speaking audiences and Social Solidarity initiatives worldwide. This article...
REAS
Perpetual Motion
Perpetual Motion
Carpe Diem - Seize the day. While every day might not be good, there is always something good in every day. Life is filled with adventures and experiences. Life is about living. Find what drives you. Find what motivates you to get up every morning. Make every last second count.
8 min
Seeking the Good Life in America: Alternative Ways to Live Sustainably
Seeking the Good Life in America: Alternative Ways to Live Sustainably (2011)
Join Joy on her journey to visit intentional communities as she searches for a place to call home.
62 min