Special alternative living documentary screening at ecovillage

The New Peasants, a documentary by Happen Films, will be screened at Narara Ecovillage at 6pm on Thursday, August 28.

The film explores what happens when the values of the culture you’ve always known no longer align with how you see the World.

It is a powerful and loving portrait of life lived to the full in relationship to place, kin and community.

The New Peasants offers an intimate look into the life of Meg, Patrick, Zephyr and Woody.

They are a family who, for 20 years, have been transitioning away from modern industrial culture toward a radically simple, sustainable, and beautiful way of life.

Concerns about the industrial food system and environmental crises provided the family’s initial motivation to live differently.

Now it’s 15 years since they’ve eaten from a supermarket or owned a car.

The household, living intentionally below the poverty line and meeting 80% of their needs without using money, is nonetheless rich in so many ways.

Wealth is found in a cellar of preserved foods, connections with community, saved seeds, homesteading skills and the time to focus on what really matters in life.

Yet the decision to live this way has brought profound challenges for the family, in the form of their eldest son’s encounters with the law.

These experiences have produced immense grief, but, in the end, also great joy.

See the Narara Ecovillage Facebook page for details of the screening.