Voices of Transition

Nothing about the film is dry or boring or false. All the same, the topic of climate change, peak oil and dwindling resources, alternative ecological agriculture and the cooperation of a movement that is getting ready to ‘evolutionise’ our planet, is an important, political topic. It is just that the film does not wait for politicians, nor does it arouse the expectation that politicians could somehow be of any use. Crisis or no crisis: communal living should once again be a pleasure. That’s why

shaggy-haired Englishman Mike Feingold stands there in his back yard, refreshingly irreverent with a cigarette in the corner of his mouth, pressing juice out of his apples. By way of explanation, he adds that if the juice was allowed to ferment for three or four days it would turn into cider, and then apple vinegar, and if that too kept for a long time, he could still use it for cleaning toilets or windows. In the film, many normal people have their say, and what they say makes sense. We only have to be guided by other goals and the journey begins.
In nine interwoven chapters, the forthcoming paradigm shift is anticipated. Briton Dr. Rob Hopkins tells the story of the Transition movement network, and how the world will change step by step. Professor Christian Dupraz tells the story of a wood, its trees and plants and talks about the art of traditional, healthy French farming. The English gardener Martin Crawford reveals the secrets of the forest garden to the camera. Efficiency, he says, is the relationship between energy output and energy input, including the amount of work needed, the energy of machines and chemical energy. Forest gardens, he continues, are the most efficient agricultural systems of all time, certainly more efficient than the fossil energy being pumped into the industrial agricultural complex, including EU subsidies. On the basis of many positive examples from different countries, Voices of Transition shows how we can prepare our fields and our towns for the double challenge of climate change and oil shortages. In the film, key protagonists of socio-ecological change in France, England and Cuba have their say.
The Cuban example tells the following story: at the beginning of the 1990s, the tropical island was overcome by a catastrophic economic crisis and its industrial state agriculture was turned upside down. Russia no longer delivered cheap oil, chemical fertilisers or pesticides. What should they do? With lots of improvisation and skill, the Cubans succeeded in making a virtue out of a necessity and survived almost without oil. Today, one generation later and almost unknown, Cuba and Havana have developed into worldwide pioneers in urban cooperative and private eco-agriculture.

The young French-German-Spanish film-maker Nils Aguilar (aged 34) has succeeded in making a major documentary film for the cinema. His debut work, Voices of Transition, 65 minutes long, as well exists in Portuguese with subtitles. It is, however, distributed by Milpa-Films (Berlin) in German, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Swedish, Dutch and Romanian. The self-taught film-maker tells us – with a bit of science fiction thrown in – a story with a happy ending.