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The Making of Utopia
brought us to four utopian (aka intentional)
communities in Australia (Bodhi Farm, Dharmananda,
Equilibrium and Moora Moora.) We sent an open letter
to the communities inviting them to join a workshop
and write a fiction film about themselves. The main
questions we posed to the communities were related
to the ongoing conflict between utopian vision and
communal reality. The workshops resulted in 4 short
fiction films written and acted by community
members. In several interviews the participants
commented on the films that came up in each
community. Additional commentary is provided by Bill
Metcalf - a leading researcher of Intentional
Communities.
Australia has a long history of utopian communities
dating back into the 19th century. A large number of
communities were established in the aftermath of the
Aquarius festival - the Australian version of
Woodstock - held in the rural area of Nimbin in
1973. Some of the festival-goers stayed in the area
turning land-sharing fantasies into reality. While
most of the post-Aquarius communities have
disintegrated, the participants of "The making of
Utopia" have managed to sustain a communal lifestyle
for over 30 years and became role-models for similar
experiments. The only exception is Equilibrium Inc.
– a group of people just in the planning stage for
setting up an intentional community near Sydney.
VIEW EPISODE
VIEW INTERVIEW
WITH BILL METCALF
Making of Utopia : 2006 :
film 60 min : video installation (exhibition)
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