This weekend the oldest eco-village, Findhorn, launches an important film to commemorate its extraordinarily ambitious 2014 New Story Summit. I have just read a review by one of the talented filmmakers, Rhonda Fabian, who I had the good fortune to meet at the Summit.  I quote her text below to give you an idea of what the film aims to achieve. It is a conference that I often reflect on, it was both inspiring and challenging; I have since followed some of the people that I met there online, to see how their work is influencing change in many diverse domains. Rhonda writes:

Viewing the film can give a sense of what it was like to be at the Summit. The diversity of voices is remarkable and the accumulated wisdom, at times overwhelming. A viewer would wish to sit down with any one of the articulate speakers who appear in the film for a heart-to-heart talk, a rare privilege this filmmaker appreciated greatly. Yet, by breaking up the chaos of ideas into even smaller sound bites and compartmentalizing them into chaptered silos, the film inadvertently mirrors the frustrating sense some at the Summit felt – that a true sense of unity remained elusive; a feeling of not quite reaching the peak.

This is neither a reflection on the Summit or Findhorn Community. They did their job well, organizing a challenging event to serve diverse needs. The Summit, (and the film), was a brave undertaking by Findhorn and a great leap of faith. Offered ‘in the gift’, attendees paid what they were able to afford. The film is a labor of love, more than a year in the making. So why, after viewing, does it feel so emotionally uplifting and painful at the same time?

Maybe because the world is facing a birth crisis, and there is no easy way through it. It is a path made by walking, and in many cases, stumbling…together. Each statement made in the film seems sure, a tiny step on a shared journey of monumental faith. Yet all statements together form a dense labyrinth of what Buddhism calls, ‘views’. We really don’t know the answers. Truth is found in the doing. The final chapter of the film is most satisfying because it highlights many actions and initiatives underway in the world that express this.

Rhonda Fabian (read her complete review here)

The film is to be live-streamed this weekend Saturday 30 April 2016 19:00-22:00 GMT+1

Click here to watch live and join the post-screening discussion or find out how you can view the film in the future.

See trailer:

______________________

Also a special note of thanks to the memory of the late Dr. Chris Seeley, who nominated me to attend the Summit. Chris shared her ‘artful’ action research work for sustainability that I have since appreciated is useful to articulate the value of  ‘many ways of knowing’ in eco-social art practice.