Watch the Trailer and Read the Story of ACTionism

ACTionism - The Story

ACTionism, the film, follows Ellie Meredith’s journey. A journey of discovery, told through the Re-Action Collective. The collective is a group of organisations and Citizens that are re-imaging our relationship with clothing, equipment and the outdoors.

Together they’re co-creating, sharing, building and demonstrating a different future. The work is emergent, not defined by rules and hierarchies, in essence they’re free to play, share, connect and find a new way.

As Ellie the star of ACTionism recently described “we lay the flagstones as we walk the path.” And, that’s also evident in the way we created and launched the film ACTionism.

To describe the process of creating the film, we would talk about trust, about how we followed our feelings, how we let the story emerge, and how it’s OK to not have all the answers. 

The film exists thanks to funding from Inghams and support from their team, especially Prue and Krissy. I think the key to the success of ACTionism lies with the fact that in the early stages they gave us the invitation to just go tell our story.

Now, I’m not going to lie, that freedom did come with a little bit of anxiety. There was a real sense that we wanted to honour their support and funding, and that we felt that we needed to create a great film.

This is the first film we’ve made, and giving consideration to how we would share the film and reach an audience was another also another first.

To create the film, we already knew who to turn to. The year before we’d met Michael Shaw, a young filmmaker. Re-Action had featured in a documentary film called “Green Mountain Pioneers.” The film told the story of citizens and businesses taking action in the French Alps, through a journey travelling a walking route that tours Mont Blanc.

Michael shot and edited the film, carrying tens of kilos of equipment across the Alps. The storytelling was fantastic and as a viewer you went on a journey. That’s exactly the way we wanted to tell the ACTionism story. We wanted it to be a human story, a demonstration of a journey we could go on together.

So, just as Prue and Krissy had given us freedom, we too did the same with Michael. Sure, there was a one page brief about what story that we wanted to tell, which really boiled down to a story of a young person moving from anxiety to collective action.

Michael deserves a massive shout out here. From this point on, he organised everything. The film was shot in locations across the UK and the French Alps. Michael organised all the transport and accommodation, and liaised with the cast. Essentially, he handled it all, which is no small feat on a vision of this size, and with our budget.

AN EMERGING STORY

The way the story evolved in the film was through an emergent process. There was no shot list, no script. We left Ellie and Michael to it. We put our trust in them.

Creating the film turned out to be a journey, in itself, for both Ellie and Michael. 

We watched Ellie grow through the process. Telling your personal story can be hard, sharing your deepest thoughts, your anxieties challenging. On top of that there was the meeting of new people, travelling to new places, and firsts like climbing mountains. Having a camera pointed in your direction, and being the centre of a story, whilst on those journeys is an unusual experience. It’s a lot. There were times that Ellie found tough but she worked through them, and grew from the process.

“Filming ACTionism was a properly bizarre process, but I feel like I’ve really metamorphosed through it. It was so special getting to meet people who care about the same stuff I do. I needed to know I’m not alone in that.

In the process there have been so many firsts for me – challenging moments that took me miles out of my comfort zone.

As the weeks went by, I stopped worrying – about how I looked, how I sounded, or how I might come across on film. The camera stopped focusing solely on my story. Instead, it captured something much bigger, a collective narrative unfolding together.

This wild adventure began for me from a place of longing – to find something bigger than myself, something to care for. I felt like I cared about the planet, at a frequency that didn’t seem to match those around me. I remember this deep sense of betrayal, when the grownups promised it would all be okay. But it wasn’t. It isn’t. The world felt like it was falling apart, and no one wanted to name it. Finding these others, though – has changed everything.”

Michael also changed, sharing the following.

“My perspective and my values have changed, and with that, so has the impact on people around me. It sounds like a very short length of time to be so significant, but my experience during filming introduced me to an alternative future that revolves around better connections with people.”

They became the story as they lived through the process of making the film. The story embodied their journey.

After filming for a few months Michael sent over a draft edit, and in the first instance the story didn’t hold together. Michael, who’s been through this process a few times, asked for constructive feedback to improve the film.

We still had a bit of budget for a few more days of filming, and over the next couple of edits the story emerged.

I remember the joyful feeling, of realising that we had a film, and that the story would speak to a broad audience. I also felt excitement from the realisation that the film would help us find more of our people, so we could take more collective action.

HOW TO GET THIS OUT IN THE WORLD?

It was around this time that our thoughts flipped to another question, how are we going to get this out in the world? I’m a bit vague on how we arrived at an answer to this question, but it went something like this.

Much of the good stuff work we do is a result of asking questions, and the fact that we’re happy with not having all the answers. We didn’t have a ready-made answer for how to get ACTionism out in the world. We’d shared a couple of short films before through social media platforms and had next to no success. We knew that just putting the film on an online platform, with crossed fingers wasn’t going to work.

At some point the conversation drifted back to thoughts from a chance meeting the year before. I had met Alex Fish from 99p Films, a social cinema CIC, at the Goodfest event in Cornwall. Alex was sleeping in a shed, I was camping in a field, and we bumped into each other on our walk to the venue on the first morning.

"99p Films is a revolutionary community interest cinema that goes beyond traditional film screenings. We create a transformative experience by incorporating mindful breathing, engaging discussions and communal feasts.”

We hit it off, spending most of the event together. So much so, a few months later, Alex came to visit me in the Alps. We can chat... and found plenty of opportunities to do so on ski lifts. Alex’s approach to bringing citizens together around film screenings fascinated me. 

ACTionism is a film about moving from passive consumers to active citizens. So, we started asking ourselves what are the outcomes we want from the film. We soon realised that the metrics we’re interested in are based around connecting citizens, changing stories and creating action. We realised that we are not interested in download numbers, and that we didn’t want citizens to passively consume this film in their homes, we wanted the film to be watched actively with others.

What started emerging is thoughts about how we could launch the film through community screenings. We started asking, could the film be a tool to bring citizens together?

As all these thoughts were going on we were suddenly offered the opportunity to premier the film at the Better Business Summit, in less than a month. Michael got to work finishing the editing, and created a trailer, Ellie started sharing little bits about the story and promoting the event.

At this point, we still didn’t have a name but that soon changed when Michael sent an edit with the word ACTionism as a title placeholder. We chucked a few ideas around amongst us as to what the definition of that term would be and what it meant to us, settling on, the art of finding your people and taking collective action.

"I think we’ll look back one day and realise that in that moment a movement was born."

Launch Day

The Better Business Summit screening was confirmed, and my thoughts had turned to what I could do, to help, from France. I decided I wanted to do something creative, something that added a bit more context to ACTionism. I also wanted to give a platform to some of my favourite writers and creative citizens.

Within a week I’d created ACTionism, an 80 page handbook. Designed to inspire, connect and present citizens with a first step into action. Including stories of action, art, beautiful photos, a guide from Alex about how to host social cinema events in your community, ways for citizens to get involved, and brilliant bits of writing from friends.

In the days running up to the event, I’d freely shared a digital version of the handbook to create interest, and Andy Davies had pulled together website pages and a request form to host community screenings. 

The premier screening was a huge success.

Off the back of that one screening within just 2 weeks we’d had over 60 requests from communities to screen the film.

We also received funding, thanks to Jon Alexander, to print 2,000 copies of the handbook. ACTionism was suddenly alive.

The film has now screened in New Zealand, London, Kendal, the Hope Valley, Sallanches, Manchester, and last night, in Bourg St Maurice, plus more.

I was lucky to have a front row seat to last night’s screening. At the event Zelia from One Tree at Time ran a La Patchographie space, patching and repairing clothing. Re-Action co-founder Heather and Zelia, recorded an interview for a Youtube channel, and hosted a conversation after the film.

I watched the film alongside some of the citizens involved in both creating the film, and some of those that starred in it, which was a lovely experience. 

The conversation that followed the screening was incredible, and I loved seeing the community come together to discuss the issues we face, to talk about the action we can take and sharing ideas and feelings of support. 

It reinforced something I already know. There is something special emerging out of these valleys, which is citizen-led and powerful. And it’s not just these valleys, ACTionism the film demonstrates that it is happening everywhere.

After we’d wrapped up the screening, someone said to Heather, “acknowledging climate anxiety is brilliant – no one is doing this. Everyone is anxious but no one’s talking about it – she thought this was a really good way to tell a positive story about how you can use negative feelings to take positive action – hurray!!!!”

Hurray, indeed. ‘WE’ did it. This has been some journey, one where we’ve truly laid the flagstones as we’ve travelled, one that is only just beginning. Thank you to all those citizens that have made it possible, “WE’RE’ doing it.