Thank You, Global Community, for Making This Contest a Success When we launched the Possible Futures Film Contest earlier this year, we invited each and every person on the planet to share the ideas, people, projects, technologies, and ways of living that could shift our direction toward a more positive future – and the response was incredible! As of the close of public voting today, tens of thousands of people in 162 countries around the world had watched and shared the powerful films submitted to this contest. Thank you to everyone who participated – your commitment to a fair, peaceful, READ MORE…
Tips on Voting for a Possible Future
June 29, 2011 By 8 Comments
Welcome to the voting phase of the Possible Futures Film Contest! Voting is open to everyone, including filmmakers, and is as easy as these five steps: Register as a voter. Click the activation link in the email that is sent to you (check your spam folder if you don’t see the email after a minute or two). Sign in to vote. Browse films in Watch and Vote. Click the “Vote For This Film” button next to the films that inspire you most. Once you register, you can vote for over 300 visionary films, and each of them has something valuable READ MORE…
Thanks, Filmmakers! Now Get Ready to Vote
June 29, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Submissions for the 2011 Possible Futures Film Contest are now closed, but our team is busier than ever. We are screening all 317 of the compelling, astonishing, beautiful films submitted from 44 countries around the world. Our hearts are breaking and being refilled by your visions for our possible future, visions that are clear-eyed about the poverty, prejudice, violence, and hunger we’re facing, but just as clear-eyed about the solutions that already exist. To all the filmmakers, those who supported them, and everyone in our community who shared this contest with the world: Thank you! 3 Things You Can Do READ MORE…
Enter Your Film By June 21: Yes, You Can!
June 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Since we pushed films live on this site a few weeks ago, incredible things have been happening. Our top three: We’ve uploaded 109 of your amazing, visionary, and inspiring films. 466 people in 25 countries have registered as filmmakers. Musician and pop culture writer Hugh Hart mentioned the Possible Futures Film Contest in his San Francisco Chronicle column. We can’t wait to see what happens in the next 18 days, as we count down to the submission deadline on June 21st. To those of you who have been thinking of entering but are now wondering if you can still create READ MORE…
Films Are Live: Watch Now & Share Your Favorites!
May 11, 2011 By 4 Comments
A seven-year-old girl smiling with her solar panel in the remote Himalayas. The drab colors of agribusiness as seen from the back of a monarch butterfly. Udaipur City’s only female auto rickshaw driver. You’ll find all of this and more on our Watch & Vote page, unveiled today! Voting won’t officially begin until June 28th, but starting now you can share your favorite films with all your social networks. Each film has a unique URL and links to share on Facebook and Twitter are one click away. Think of yourself as the director of programming for CNN, or the editor-in-chief READ MORE…
3 Bloggers With Inspiration & Resources You Can Use
May 7, 2011 By Leave a Comment
One of the best parts of launching a film contest is getting to meet incredibly cool people. “Meet” being a relative term, of course, since we’re an online film contest. We’re so grateful for the support we’ve received from bloggers spreading the word about the Possible Futures Film Contest - on their blogs, or Facebook, or Twitter. Today we want to introduce you to three of them. They all offer inspiration and resources we think are really valuable to anyone working for a positive possible future, through film or in other ways. Who are your favorite bloggers? Where do you READ MORE…
Telling the Story of Peace & Freedom: Follow the Joy
April 21, 2011 By 2 Comments
For at least 30 years, “follow the money” has been a widely-used strategy for revealing and telling stories of corruption and oppression. Since the Possible Futures Film Contest is about telling new, positive stories of the future, we want to suggest a new strategy for storytelling. Strategy 3: Follow the Joy. We can feel joy in our bodies, see it on others’ faces, hear it in our voices and laughter. It’s got to be a much easier strategy to carry out than following an abstraction like money that often only exists on paper. And where people are living in peace READ MORE…
Great Films & Movement Building at PowerShift 2011
April 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Possible Futures Film Contest project manager Karen Dallett is in Washington, D.C. this weekend at PowerShift 2011, which is shaping up to be the “biggest organizer training session in history.” How is that possible? Thank the team at New Organizing Institute, who revised their weeklong training into an intensive 2-day bootcamp to train 10,000 youth leaders and build a powerful movement for a sustainable future. We know NOI believes in the power of films, because they have a great one on their “Organizing Toolkit” page. Not to mention that their Toolkit features a whole section on Story! In related shout-outs, READ MORE…
Telling the Story of Peace & Freedom: Learning from History
April 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment
As we continue exploring things we can do or consider to tell a compelling story about peace and freedom, we realize we keep talking about certain people - our Peace & Freedom heroes. So why not draw inspiration from the narrative arc of their lives? Strategy 2: Learn From History. Of course there are the famous stories many of us are familiar with, of both individuals and communities who promoted peace and freedom in various ways throughout history: B. R. Ambedkar Ella Baker César Chavez H. H. The 14th Dalai Lama M. K. Gandhi Martin Luther King, Jr. Wangari Maathai READ MORE…
Announcing the Flip Camera Winners!
April 13, 2011 By 1 Comment
We got a great response to our Early Bird challenge, and we’re thrilled to announce the 5 randomly selected winners of the HD Flip cameras. Picking the winners also turned out to be a fun part of this week’s staff meeting. The best part is that the winners (and the pool of participants we selected them from) reflect a global reach – exactly what we were hoping for when we launched this contest. Here’s some more info about each of them, excerpted from their filmmaker profiles (want one?). Look for their films to go live on our website later this READ MORE…
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