As a film-maker, witnessing a movie industry obsessed with sleaze, money and violence, I vote for change. I believe in the intelligence of audiences worldwide, and know we have the power to project a more compassionate human drama.

I first became aware of the epidemic of negativity at film school. Over four years, I watched other talented film-makers opt to make films about rape, torture and murder. I chose to aim my camera at soup kitchens helping the homeless and stories of people following their dreams.

But my graduation project was marked down for ‘excessive cheer’. The film, Transcending The Storm, went on to win an Award for Excellence in Documentary Filmmaking and had a world premiere in the US. This gave me hope again that there was an audience for positive films.

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I was invited to London (my company is based in Lendrick Lodge in the wilds of Scotland) by one of Britain’s biggest TV channels, with the potential of a commission. They would pay to make the film then have the exclusive right to broadcast it. I remember standing outside the pearly gates of their headquarters, dwarfed by their giant logo. Inside, we watched scenes from my debut film and talked shop. It was looking good; I was beyond excited. Then they gave me three existing documentaries they had commissioned to view. I should create a similar style of film. And my heart sank.

My choices from which to draw inspiration were: a documentary about a place that’s popular to commit suicide, an educational institution where people were bullied to death, or a shocking film about fascism in Britain. I said that I preferred to make films about people doing remarkable things for humanity and the planet. “My vision is to expose greatness,” I said.

I was told that documentaries are expository, and should reveal the bad things happening in the world. I argued that that style of film-making was pretty well covered already. But their chequebook was closed, the door to leave opened, and the head of new documentaries finished with the words, “no one is interested in films like that”. He called someone to show me the way out.

He and others in the mainstream media are entitled to their opinions, but we must remember, they are just opinions.

I was told that documentaries are expository, and should reveal the bad things happening in the world

Our mission is to produce positive films that create hope, and excitement for living. Our greatest achievement to date? Someone bought a copy of Transcending The Storm, and visited a friend to give it as a gift. Their friend, an alcoholic, was suffering from deep depression. They knocked at her door, but on getting no answer, stuck the DVD through the letterbox. Little did they know that she was about to commit suicide. The knock on the door interrupted her. She went to the door and found and watched film – three times.

It struck a very personal chord with her. It’s a true-life story about going beyond the past and finding a more positive future. In fact, it’s my story, about trying to escape a violent and alcoholic past after finding myself on the brink of death in a Glasgow hospital. As well as insights from experts in the field of social change, it draws upon wisdom from Peruvian shamans and Native American elders. It’s a film to give hope to people trapped in addictions such as alcoholism.

The woman behind the closed door didn’t kill herself. Months later, she is sober, happy and has created a better way to live. A beautiful example of someone ‘interested in films like that’.

Arriving at Machu Picchu, Peru, to track down a shaman: a still from Transcending The Storm. Image: Seeing the Magic

It’s time to think beyond archetypical movies about a white male hero’s quest. Let’s switch off the sexual violence towards women, and homophobic adult and even children’s movies. Forget flicks that show indigenous people who can’t solve their own challenges: they don’t need to be saved by white guys with guns. We need to evolve beyond stereotypical gay or lesbian characters too. Imagine instead, more female leads and heroes; an ethnically diverse selection of characters and A-list actors. What about dramatic stories about people collaborating to make life better for the common good?

Millions of people across the world yearn for a more positive narrative. There’s never been a better time to collectively expose greatness.

Read more: Constructive criticism: three documentary films that changed the world (…and one that could)

Stephen Mulhearn 
is the creative director at film production company Seeing the Magic

This article is featured in issue 92 of Positive News magazine. Subscribe now to get the magazine delivered to your door each quarter.

The post ‘Forget sleaze, money and violence. Film-making should expose greatness’ appeared first on Positive News.

Your new book centres around the idea that humanity has brought about ecological crisis almost as a rite of passage, to pave the way for transcendence. Why is this your view?

We are hardwired for transcendent experience, which is why traditional cultures all around the world have initiatory ordeals such as vision quests, psychedelic journeys, walkabouts and so on. Modern western civilisation denies the need for this, but if humans can’t find transcendence they will seek it negatively, through destructive episodes such as wars. We have known about the ecological threat for decades but we have been unable to act to deal with it. I believe we are subconsciously seeking a collective threshold of intensity in order to bring about our own transformation.

We forget how life and our civilisation is inherently miraculous

Sum up your vision for a mass social movement to address this crisis we face

There are many movements already happening all over the world, but somehow this vast ‘people’s movement’ has been unable to transform the society as a whole. I see that we could organise something like a global direct democracy or an alternative system for exchanging value through the internet. Because of the scalability of internet-based projects, this could happen quickly. The people could create something like a ‘digital nation’ based on principles and transparency, for instance. Whether this happens remains to be seen.

To what extent do you think this is possible?

We forget how life and our civilisation is inherently miraculous. We are ten trillion cells and microorganisms held by gravity to a sphere whirling around an atomic fireball, whirling around a black hole in the middle of infinite empty space. Just a few thousand years ago, we were apes, and now we have a global communications system and are considering settling other worlds. Anything is possible! Imagination, willpower, discipline and courage are the keys.

We will eventually reduce our focus on virtual technologies, realising they are degraded substitutes, as love and community become central again

You call for an “intentional and consciously designed metamorphosis of our current systems”. What would this look like?

I think we would want a basic income or subsidy so people didn’t have to feel anxious about the basis of their own existence. We would want a post-capitalist system where work was voluntary due to automation. People would have more time to live, perhaps in multigenerational communities where they develop their creativity and cultivate their unique individualities, spending more time with children and loved ones. We will, at the same time, explore the infinite inner dimensions of consciousness as a new direction or a new frontier for humanity. We will have a decentralised democracy that scales from the local to the bioregional to the planetary level. We will, I think, eventually reduce our focus on virtual technologies, realising they are degraded substitutes, as love and community become central again.

You’ve said that such a change will occur only when we see ourselves as one planetary tribe. Why is this?

Tribal people saw themselves as the ‘in group’ compared to other humans who were part of an ‘out group’ and therefore not fully human. Modern society has perpetuated this with nationalism and racism, and misogyny now even, gaining adherents. We are only going to survive and then thrive as a species when we realise we are one human family, all genetically related from one African ancestor. We have a role we can step in to in terms of the Earth’s ecology which is to serve and protect the community of life. Indigenous tribal people also model that for us.

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I sift through treasures left by the waves: bubble-pop seaweed, slick gleaming razor clams and a purple crab shell mottled with a map of the Milky Way.

Nearby, children squat close to the sand as if sprouted from the shore itself. With driftwood sticks and fingers, they scratch into the silt below the tideline: their names, stars, hearts, etched in impermanence.

This urge to leave our mark – it feels so human. Why do we do it? Why carve our initials in the ground, or pile stones up in cairns, recording our presence with each smoothly worn stack?

Why are we so drawn to trees, venerating them with coins pushed into trunks, hanging their branches with rags or charms, winding wool around them? We associate trees with wisdom, maybe. Ideas “take root”, a book has “leaves”. The young, the old, the curious and the romantic, hook our hopes on to them, as they bear witness.

Even where nature is neutered, we make meaning with what is left: scrawls on bleak brick walls

We tuck feathers into gateposts and leave daisies, pinched from the earth and threaded into chains, swinging from stiles. Even where nature is neutered, we make meaning with what is left: graffiti scrawls on bleak brick walls. We wedge bottle tops into grass in parks, leave footprints in freshly-poured concrete and throw coins into fountains that are more civic than sacred. Half-hearted wishful-thinking.

We live at a distance, our lives mediated through screens, but we perform these acts of contact too, streaming out silk ribbon lines of connection wherever we go. They weave meaning into the land, marking our existence. Each act is a love letter in our relationship with place.

The children’s words are being drawn back into the ocean now. The fluency of our language is like water, ever-coursing onwards. We haven’t stopped speaking to the Earth, the conversation is all around us.

Illustration by Elena Boils

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