This month we are screening two short films by Happen Films. Strawbale Dream Home and The Rubbish Trip.
2 screenings
ABOUT THE FILMS
STRAWBALE DREAM HOME
This film follows the building of a beautiful eco-home by wonderful owner builders Adam and Sian in Victoria, Australia. It’s a stunning traditional timber frame home combining timber joinery, strawbale, and cob. And it radiates with the wholehearted love they poured into designing the sustainable home of their dreams, and then building it.
If you’ve been following us a while, you may recall that seven years ago we made a film about Adam and Sian’s first home, The Handmade House Truck. Their new forever home is even more special.
We shot this film sporadically over four years, which is a really long production run for us! Each time Jordan visited his homeland of Australia, he’d check in with Adam and Sian to catch up on the build. And the inevitable story that has developed around it.
That story included the birth of their first child alongside the unexpected death of a beloved family member. Both events weaving into the story of joy, heartache, community connection, frustration, and love that’s become as much part of the house’s structure as the straw and cob and timber.
Aside from the craftsmanship, beautiful aesthetics, and sheer naturalness of this building, we really love that it’s urban. You don’t get to see so many natural buildings in this setting. Perhaps seeing more eco homes like this created using natural building techniques will shine a light on the waste and toxic materials so prevalent today’s house construction.
This timber frame home serves as an inspiration in so many beautiful ways, as do its owner builders Adam and Sian!
This story was filmed on Gadubanud country in Victoria, Australia. We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of this land and pay respects to Elders past, present, and emerging.
RUBBISH TRIP
Hannah and Liam are the inspiring couple behind The Rubbish Trip, originally a nationwide tour offering free zero waste workshops around Aotearoa New Zealand. Now experts on the why’s and how’s of reducing waste, Hannah and Liam are our personal zero waste heroes – educators, advocates, and activists on a subject that is ultimately about so much more than waste.
For this film, we asked Hannah and Liam about their perspective on what it means to be zero waste, what it’s taken for them to make suitable lifestyle changes toward that goal, and their work in advocacy and activism. This short film offers inspiration and encouragement to all of us, no matter where we are on our waste minimisation journey.
Hannah and Liam’s story offers another opportunity for Happen Films to contribute to the global conversation about waste. It is topical and it needs urgent action. We see it as a critical subject to be discussing in our households, communities, businesses, and with our governments: how can each and every one of us assume responsibility for our impact on the planet and on each other and work towards the necessary system change?
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ABOUT HAPPEN FILMS
The aim of Happen Films is to showcase and demonstrate inspiring solutions to the multiple global crises we’re facing today. We’re currently living through an exceptional time in human history, where what we’ve known as normal is breaking down due to environmental, cultural, and social limits being reached. This overlap of climate change, peak oil, financial instability, environmental destruction, and inequality have created the conditions for a massive global shift in the way we relate to the world and each other.
We need to transition to not just living ‘sustainably’, but in a way that heals and regenerates the damage that’s been done. So how do we go about doing this? Exploring this question is what Happen Films was founded upon and is what drives us to do what we do. The solutions are out there and people are pioneering this transition. We want to find these people and share their stories in order to inspire others to make change in their own lives and in their communities.
Those ‘others’ include ourselves: each of our interviewees has inspired us to make important changes not just in our personal lives but in the way we operate Happen Films. To learn more about how we operate, check out the How is Happen Films Funded? page. If you’re keen to support our work, visit the Support page.
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