Behind the Scenes: Launching the Possible Futures Film Contest Website

Can a film contest change the world? All of us on the Possible Futures Film Contest team think so.

It’s true we’re not film contest experts. It’s also true The Pachamama Alliance, our parent organization, has never done anything like this before. That didn’t stop us from gathering around a whiteboard about five months ago with a vision for a new kind of film contest, sketching an idea for a homepage, and jumping right in.

The core of The Pachamama Alliance’s work, up until now, has been focused on dreams: the dreams of the Achuar people to preserve their home and traditions, while simultaneously shifting the misguided “dream” of modern life in the global North.

Films share with dreams the power to shed light on our current reality. Yet because the experience of a film can be directly shared by millions of people, films – like other media - have an added power to shape our reality and our future.

As we reflect on our launch today, we know the Possible Futures Film Contest can be a global effort to move us out of the dream and into a new, positive reality.

Every web team hopes for a smooth website launch, free of bugs and embarrassing typos. We’re not too worried on that front, thanks to our crack internal team and the brilliant web developers over at HyperArts, just across the Bay.

Our bigger hope, as Karen Dallett - project manager for the Possible Futures Film Contest - put it, is to see “the stories of the people influence the direction of the world.”

As the team has become its own creative community these last few months, it’s been clear that a shared vision, combined with diverse experience, can lead to beautiful and previously unimagined solutions.

And the most exciting part is still to come. Already, we’ve heard from folks in Israel, Rwanda, Tunisia, Canada, Native America, and the UK via Facebook and Twitter. Enjoy the site, and we look forward to seeing your film!