PERMACULTURE FILM CLUB: Strawbale Dream Home & The Rubbish Trip

Welcome to our Permaculture Film Club for June. Each month the Permaculture Education Institute sponsors wonderful films and conversations, hosted by Morag Gamble. Come and join in!

This month we are screening two short films by Happen Films, Strawbale Dream Home and The Rubbish Trip.

2 screenings

• 9-10am AEST
• 7-8pm AEST

ABOUT THE FILMS

STRAWBALE DREAM HOME

This film follows the building of a beautiful eco-home by wonderful owner builders Adam and Sian in Victoria, Australia. It’s a stunning traditional timber frame home combining timber joinery, strawbale, and cob. And it radiates with the wholehearted love they poured into designing the sustainable home of their dreams, and then building it.

If you’ve been following us a while, you may recall that seven years ago we made a film about Adam and Sian’s first home, The Handmade House Truck. Their new forever home is even more special.

We shot this film sporadically over four years, which is a really long production run for us! Each time Jordan visited his homeland of Australia, he’d check in with Adam and Sian to catch up on the build. And the inevitable story that has developed around it.

That story included the birth of their first child alongside the unexpected death of a beloved family member. Both events weaving into the story of joy, heartache, community connection, frustration, and love that’s become as much part of the house’s structure as the straw and cob and timber.

Aside from the craftsmanship, beautiful aesthetics, and sheer naturalness of this building, we really love that it’s urban. You don’t get to see so many natural buildings in this setting. Perhaps seeing more eco homes like this created using natural building techniques will shine a light on the waste and toxic materials so prevalent today’s house construction.

This timber frame home serves as an inspiration in so many beautiful ways, as do its owner builders Adam and Sian!

This story was filmed on Gadubanud country in Victoria, Australia. We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of this land and pay respects to Elders past, present, and emerging.

RUBBISH TRIP

Hannah and Liam are the inspiring couple behind The Rubbish Trip, originally a nationwide tour offering free zero waste workshops around Aotearoa New Zealand. Now experts on the why’s and how’s of reducing waste, Hannah and Liam are our personal zero waste heroes – educators, advocates, and activists on a subject that is ultimately about so much more than waste.

For this film, we asked Hannah and Liam about their perspective on what it means to be zero waste, what it’s taken for them to make suitable lifestyle changes toward that goal, and their work in advocacy and activism. This short film offers inspiration and encouragement to all of us, no matter where we are on our waste minimisation journey.

Hannah and Liam’s story offers another opportunity for Happen Films to contribute to the global conversation about waste. It is topical and it needs urgent action. We see it as a critical subject to be discussing in our households, communities, businesses, and with our governments: how can each and every one of us assume responsibility for our impact on the planet and on each other and work towards the necessary system change?

Hannah and Liam will be joining us for both the morning and afternoon sessions

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ABOUT HAPPEN FILMS

The aim of Happen Films is to showcase and demonstrate inspiring solutions to the multiple global crises we’re facing today. We’re currently living through an exceptional time in human history, where what we’ve known as normal is breaking down due to environmental, cultural, and social limits being reached. This overlap of climate change, peak oil, financial instability, environmental destruction, and inequality have created the conditions for a massive global shift in the way we relate to the world and each other.

We need to transition to not just living ‘sustainably’, but in a way that heals and regenerates the damage that’s been done. So how do we go about doing this? Exploring this question is what Happen Films was founded upon and is what drives us to do what we do. The solutions are out there and people are pioneering this transition. We want to find these people and share their stories in order to inspire others to make change in their own lives and in their communities.

Those ‘others’ include ourselves: each of our interviewees has inspired us to make important changes not just in our personal lives but in the way we operate Happen Films. To learn more about how we operate, check out the How is Happen Films Funded? page. If you’re keen to support our work, visit the Support page.

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ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS

JORDAN OSMOND

Jordan grew up in Ballarat, Australia. A budding photographer, in his mid-teens he was struck by how documentary films were having an impact on how he saw the world and how he lived his life. Impressed by what an effective medium for change they were, he wanted to get behind the camera and have a positive impact on the lives of others.

His first feature film, A Simpler Way: Crisis as Opportunity, co-directed with Samuel Alexander, has received over 3 million views on YouTube and continues to be shown at community events and festivals around the world. Having teamed up with Antoinette in Happen Films, the pair set out to make a series of short films that ended up becoming a second feature film, Living the Change. He is director, writer and cinematographer, as well as editor of nearly all of the Happen Films productions.

Jordan grew up in Ballarat, Australia. A budding photographer, in his mid-teens he was struck by how documentary films were having an impact on how he saw the world and how he lived his life. Impressed by what an effective medium for change they were, he wanted to get behind the camera and have a positive impact on the lives of others.

His first feature film, A Simpler Way: Crisis as Opportunity, co-directed with Samuel Alexander, ha,s received over 3 million views on YouTube and continues to be shown at community events and festivals around the world. Having teamed up with Antoinette in Happen Films, the pair set out to make a series of short films that ended up becoming a second feature film, Living the Change. He is the director, writer and cinematographer, as well as editor of nearly all of the Happen Films productions.

ANTOINETTE WILSON

Born in Tasmania, Australia, raised in Christchurch, Aotearoa New Zealand, Antoinette spent her teens volunteering at her local Environment and Peace Information Centre before entering a career in book publishing in her 20s. She took her work with her to Buenos Aires in 2004, where she spent six years dancing tango and working as a freelance book editor.

A journey of exploration into personal and global health led her to transition to work in an organic market garden and eventually to participating in the documentary film A Simpler Way: Crisis as Opportunity, during which she saw the extraordinary capacity of film to educate and inspire. She and Jordan teamed up in Happen Films, and she brought her production and story-telling skills over from the book industry to research, write, produce, and co-direct their films.

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ABOUT OUR FREE MONTHLY FILM CLUB

This event is part of Permaculture Education Institute's monthly permaculture film club series. We screen permaculture-related films each month and host a global conversation inspired by the film. Make sure to subscribe below to our event's portal here to hear immediately when we release a new event.

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THIS IS A ‘PAY WHAT YOU CAN’ EVENT - WHAT HAPPENS TO THE MONEY?

Whilst our film clubs are free events, we do warmly welcome your generous donation. We always send 100% of all donations received via our registered charity, Ethos Foundation. Any donation received from this event will go towards permaculture food forest nurseries and planting in East African refugee camps and locally-led classes to show youth how to set up and maintain a perennial food forest. People have been living in these camps for decades - perennial food systems are so much more reliable, robust, and abundant, and help to fight the hunger and poverty experienced every day.
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FILM CLUB HOST:  MORAG GAMBLE, PERMACULTURE EDUCATION INSTITUTE

ABOUT MORAG GAMBLE

Morag Gamble is the founder of the Permaculture Education Institute teaching permaculture educators and designers on six continents. She has lived for a quarter of a century in an award-winning ecovillage and has taught at leading ecological learning centres such as Schumacher College. Morag is passionate about this film club topic having designed and built her own eco-home at the ecovillage with her family, and lives a simple life.

Morag has also created Sense-Making in a Changing World Podcast, and the Our Permaculture LifeBLOG and YouTube collectively viewed millions of times. Morag also hosts the Ethos Fellowship - a 12 week youth leadership program, Ethos Foundation - a registered charity offering free permaculture education for refugees, and mentors and hosts the award-winning global Permayouth.
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FILM CLUB SPONSOR:  PERMACULTURE EDUCATION INSTITUTE

ABOUT THE SPONSOR

Permaculture Education Institute, based at Crystal Waters Ecovillage on Gubbi Gubbi country, offers programs to support people worldwide to become teachers of permaculture and to activate permaculture communities. The Institute hosts regular global conversations exploring one-planet living and earth restoration - through film, podcasts, masterclasses, discussion forums and many courses.

• The all-inclusive Permaculture Educators Program is an in-depth online course and global learning community combining the Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) and Permaculture Teacher Certificate, plus permaculture business modules. Start anytime. 
• Our foundational yearlong online Permaculture Design Course - will help you to create an amazing design for a place of your choice. Start anytime.
• The Incredible Edible Garden is our self-paced 6-module online permaculture gardening course. Start anytime.