Film screening + Q&A

Join us for an exclusive Ballarat screening of The New Peasants, followed by a Q&A with the director and the family the film focuses on, Meg, Patrick and Woody. Our event MC is the wonderful Lou Ridsdale, founder of local food security charity Food is Free Inc.

This is a limited screening tour – there's only a handful of community screenings happening in Australia and the film is not currently available online. Don't miss this opportunity to be amongst the first to see the film!

A portion of the proceeds of the ticket sales will be donated to Food Is Free Inc.

Watch the trailer:

Film synopsis

What happens when the values of the culture you’ve always known no longer align with how you see the world?

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

This film shares the unfolding journey of a family rejecting the mainstream culture and working to create a new one. A culture and economy that draw on ways of the past while stepping joyfully into the future. For everything they’ve let go, something has been gained. With every challenge, something learned.

This is one family’s response to the predicament of our time, offering an inspiring glimpse into the kind of future, culture, and economy we can create. This family’s way of living shows that transformative change begins at the home and community level and that we can all participate in creating a better world.