Moving Forward
January 22nd, 2011 by admin
2011. Wow. How time flies when you’re busy. We spent most of last year shaping and shooting the film, and realising how much more current some of these ideas we want to present, are becoming; partly thanks to the ever growing Zeitgeist Movement chapters spreading across the world, and the associated Zeitgeist Films (II & III) by Peter Joseph, and partly because the financial collapse and the continuing recession show no sign of abating. Meanwhile banks and bankers continue their practices of bonus pay and the financial elite is removing themselves ever further from the working and middle classes.
Here’s an article by Chrystia Freedland, The Rise of the Financial Elite in this month’s Atlantic which talks about the plutocracy of the super-rich.
“F. Scott Fitzgerald was right when he declared the rich different from you and me. But today’s super-rich are also different from yesterday’s: more hardworking and meritocratic, but less connected to the nations that granted them opportunity—and the countrymen they are leaving ever further behind.” It’s clear that in order to change the system, we must get to know the manner in which the financial elite operates.
“This shit’s got to go” says Jacque Fresco in the recently released Zeitgeist Moving Forward film. On Tuesday we put on a screening of “Zeitgeist III” in Edinburgh as part of the official world wide cinema release in over 300 venues. Although a bit long at 240min, it gives convincing arguments about how the financial and monetary system is unsustainable. Not all of them are entirely new for those of us who have been following the ideas for a while, or are engaged in socio-political debates; but for my liking it was the most accessible and comprehensive piece by Peter Joseph.
It struck me how many people in their twenties, and perhaps a disproportionate amount of young men, attended the screening. It took us less than a week to promote it online and the event was over-subscribed. Most people stayed until the end, many of which I’m sure will become supporters of the official Zeitgeist movement, which now has 494,245 members and counting.
Watching ZIII and films like The Flaw by David Sington also makes me realise how many more films about the system need to be made, and we’ll be feverishly working towards finishing ours this year.
Whether or not you are suspicious about solutions outside the monetary system, or the resource-based economy as a concept – films like these should make you sit up and realise how absolutely crazy our economic system is. And if that gives you the energy to become better informed and more interested in the world we’re living in, and how to preserve planet earth: keep going!
Sonja

Here is a still from our shoot with a model from Jacque Fresco / The Venus Project, which we put through a 3D prototyping process. It’s hard to film!