This award-winning new documentary film “Saving Walden’s World” directed by former arms dealer, Jim Merkel, will be screened at DCTV in New York City, Monday, September 23 at 7:00 PM. Doors open at 6:30 PM for socializing and networking. Eight years in the making, Merkel journeyed around the world for research and filming. This uniquely personal film questions the possible dividends of women’s empowerment and rights, and offers hints to solutions that are being taken globally to develop sustainable living and food solutions.

“As a former engineer working on weapons who went through a dramaticchange in consciousness, his words have a special power.” — the late historian, Howard Zinn, author of A People's History of the United States

Go to www.savingwaldensworld.org for more information about the film team.

This screening is timed to coincide with the Summit of the Future taking place at the UN in NYC September 20-22. This bold summit aims to accelerate progress on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Saving Walden’s World takes viewers behind the scenes in under-reported societies that accomplished many of the sustainability goals decades ahead of the 2030 targets. Can the world eradicate poverty while making life better for women, the poor and the earth? Our film shows how this is not only possible but also a way forward during a time of climate and biodiversity collapse.

This project has a long life both in development and screenings and has already won multiple awards. It has been a featured selection in global film festivals, including the Maumee Film Festival in Ohio, the Puerto Aventuras International Film Festival (PAIFF), the Love & Hope International Film Festival, in Barcelona, Spain, the Crown Wood International Film Festival in Kolkata, West Bengal, India and the Five Continents International Film Festival in Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela. This is a rare opportunity to meet the filmmaker and see why the film is garnering international attention.

Saving Walden’s World looks at what is working today and how these solutions can shape a better tomorrow. Director and writer Jim Merkel weaves a story that spans his early personal experience as a military subcontractor and his later studies of three countries where non-capitalist cultures thrive.

Entertaining & Enlightening

Whatever your perspective, Saving Walden’s World is a worthy cinematic journey. Jim Merkel and his talented team deliver an entertaining and enlightening story that includes a future with hope.

“This film will stir your heart.”—Vicki Robin, Author, Social Innovator

“Jim Merkel offers a special mix of practicality and idealism; a workable mix.”

—Bill McKibben, Climate Activist, Author

THE FILM

When a young arms dealer discovers his work is harming families in less affluent societies, he has an ethical crisis and begins a decades-long journey to redeem himself and make the world a better place. SAVING WALDEN’S WORLD is a revealing new film following Jim Merkel as he raises Walden, a budding scientist, in an off-the-grid homestead and wonders: could the very people his past-life’s work targeted, hold the keys to a sustainable planet?

“I don’t think what’s happening in Kerala has happened anywhere” Usha Nair – Climate and gender expert, Kerala, India

A journey into “enemy” territory ensues, meeting powerful women who reshape society to work for all. Far from affluent utopias, Kerala, Cuba and Slovenia offer women free college, access to contraception, maternity leave, childcare, dentistry and healthcare. Services unimaginable in much of Jim’s blue-collar America.

As earth temperatures soar, the stakes couldn’t get higher.

HELP AUDIENCES UNDERSTAND

● How land reform, literacy and universal higher education

dramatically increase well-being

● How family planning, child care and public health programs

yielded results similar to advanced European social democracies

in "poor" societies

● How many of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals were

achieved by empowered women