Fruit and vegetables growing in a tube station in Kilburn, an ex-double glazing sales man going door-to-door in Moss Side, a young boy selling salad on the side of the road in Pittsburgh and elderly people teaching the young to plough in a small village in Italy.  Each of these stories seem so small, even irrelevant, on their own but together they are part of a much larger story.

One of a movement which is getting people and communities to re-think and re-design the way they live.  This is the story of Transition 2:0 – and a new film by that name has just been launched to celebrate this quintessential grassroots movement.

It was founded to tackle the twin problems of peak oil and climate change.  
The transition movement has now sprung up across towns, cities, boroughs, universities and streets – both in rural and urban areas.

Transition 2:0, the sequel to the movement’s first film released in 2010 which introduced the project to the world, showcases the work of these communities from growing food everywhere and anywhere, to printing their own money and setting up community energy schemes.

The film is a tool-kit – a beginner’s guide to setting up a transition group.

The film’s strength is in its gathering of diverse stories of community action from across the globe. It takes you on a journey through what Rob Hopkins, founder of Transition Towns, calls ‘the four stages of transition’.

At stage one you see Joel Prittie, former-salesman going door-to-door in Manchester’s Moss Side – an area with the reputation as the Bronx of Britain – in attempt to set up a local transition group.

Prittie tells you that for the 1100 plus doors he has knocked on he now has a mailing list 400 strong and a core group to get the movement going.

From the basics of community growing, you are taken deeper into the world of Transition to examples in Yorkshire, where groups have taken over their local fruit and veg store as a co-operative and turning it back into the hub of the community.

From here you go to Brixton, where the local currency – the Brixton Pound – has now gone electronic and allows people to invest their hard-earned cash into local salesman and businesses, and then across to India, where 400 vegetable gardens has been created in Tamil Nadu.

As well a visual ‘tool-kit’ for the movement, the film also aims to inspire.

Notably some of the communities who have been hit by the shocks of the natural world are included. Following the 2011 earthquakes in New Zealand, community ‘time banks’brought people together in an attempt to help aid and speed up the areas recovery.

And back in the UK, the example of Transition Town Tooting in South London acts as a celebration of the movement, as the groups moves through the boroughs streets in their Carnival of Waste.

One destination – many roads

While this is just one film, it depicts a movement which has become so vast and has so many different stories to tell.

In some ways, the success of the Transition Network has been down to this variety. Local groups are not tied down to a set of rules or activities they must keep to and each group can develop in its own time and manner.

One example of this is shown in the contrast between Transition Town Brixton and its neighboring group Transition Town Peckham.

While both situated in South London, both being poorer boroughs of the city and both having multi-cultural communities, many people would expect them to want similar things.

But what works in one Transition Town has not necessarily led to a success in the other and while the two groups work closely together, they are at the same time very different groups. Rather than being a negative, this diversity is celebrated with the Network.

While there is a growing disillusionment over the global progress on climate change, particularly since the Rio+20 Earth Summit, and calls are growing for more localised action, Transition provides an example of how this action is in fact already happening and has been for years.

But it is not all shining lights and celebration.

Essentially the movement will be as successful as the community involved allows it. Where communities are engaged and empowered by the process, a striving and long lasting Transition Town is usually found – one which take root in the community, benefits from it and is beneficial to it.

Meanwhile those which find people un-engaged will soon find themselves disheartened and struggling.

Perhaps the biggest lesson I took from the film though was that where the opportunities are there, communities are often willing to engage. They just need a little help.

While many people believe this sense of togetherness is no longer present in modern society, Transition Towns seems to be a great example of people being willing if given that opportunity.

Click ‘Continue reading’ to see more… 

[From the latest edition of Positive News].

Having been involved in script writing and producing the trailer for In Transition 2.0, you could say this review will be biased. You’d be right. And my bias comes from the belief that this film is a powerful call to arms for a rapid evolution in the way we live and work together as it shows how collectively, we can effect extraordinary change.

In Transition 2.0 takes the viewer through an emotional journey that effectively charts the evolution of the movement from its humble origins in Kinsale, Ireland, to an international movement that now attracts the attention of politicians and world leaders.

There has been a remarkable evolution in the Transition movement over the last four years, since the first film, In Transition 1.0, was released. In Transition 2.0 has a much deeper emotional thread running through and on several occasions I was moved to tears.

“The first film was a more straightforward look at how to set up a group, such as a food or energy group,” says director Emma Goude, but since that film’s release in 2008, the movement has evolved significantly.

“Transition has moved much further into quite business-like territory and towards recreating a local economy,” continues Emma. “And the other big difference is this film is really international. We have stories from Portugal, India,US, Japan, New Zealand, England… Transition really galvanises everybody together in a sense that it is local and global, the force of numbers is quite empowering for people.”

In Transition 2.0 is a high standard professional documentary, worthy of any festival entry and certainly worthy of an international cinema release. The film was ingeniously created in the spirit of the movement itself, as a collective enterprise working with filmmakers across the planet.

Whereas the first film felt more like a budget production, for In Transition 2.0, Emma Goude felt it was important to connect with professional filmmakers. Her reasons were: to reduce editing time and production cost; to present consistently high production values; and to reduce the carbon footprint of the film by using professionally progressive filmmakers around the world.

Funded using the internet-based ‘crowdfunding’ method, the film’s producers were able to raise enough money to ensure all the filmmakers got paid.

The film left me with a feeling that this is a vital contribution to the world’s current financial and political climate – and of course the environmental climate itself. The time is clearly right for the Transition movement and this film reveals that a critical mass of people wanting change has been reached.

In Transition 2.0 shows us that anything is possible if we work together both locally and globally. The incredible journey continues.

Caspar Walsh.

In Transition 2.0 is due for DVD release in late March 2012. Licences are available for community screenings. More information: www.intransitionmovie​.com

“There was silence. You could have heard a pin drop.

And then a sound, kind of like a pin dropping. There it is again. And again, many times in rapid succession. Then silence. Nothing.

It’s the In Transition 2.0. preview film night, Moss Side Fire Station, Manchester. I’m sitting in a room with 23 people. We are halfway through the film, and the DVD player is skipping. The picture is now motionless.

One of the stories in the documentary is about the door knocking I’ve done in Moss Side. There is footage of me knocking on the doors of people I don’t know, telling them about Transition. I did a lot of this “cold calling” during the initial stages of getting our Moss Side group started. I would literally pick a street, and work my way along, knocking on every door. This proved a great way of meeting lots of neighbours, building up a contact list, and I also met one of our core group members Ali Mohamed this way.

It’s not all fun and games of course. Some people are quite suspicious and won’t talk to me. Others are very prejudiced and will. But having built up a contact list whilst doing the cold calling, my door knocking can now take on a whole new lease of life when we are promoting events.

Instead of trying my luck knocking on doors which could be answered by anyone, I’m free to simply go back to the people who were interested in hearing more. This is a different experience altogether. With this type of door knocking, smiles and pleasant chats with positive people about community and food growing are the norm.

One of our core group members and I went out to promote the In Transition 2.0 preview one day when it started chucking down with rain. We only managed to knock on 3 doors before we were soaked, but two of them were opened by people who had great chats with us about their food growing and said they’d come to the film night.

Two years ago I hardly knew anyone in Moss Side, so being able to stroll round my neighbourhood, visiting loads of friendly people who recognise me and chat to them about our Transition events is an incredible experience.

Most of our work in Moss Side so far has been focussed on awareness raising through workshops and film nights, which we have held at various local venues. One venue we are pleased to have found is our local Fire Station who have been very supportive in letting us use their community room, and we decided this would be the best place for the In Transition 2.0 film preview as it’s a nice room with a projector and en suite kitchen.

Our core group is still quite small and only three of us were available to run the event, Ali Mohamed, Becca Kind and myself, but thankfully four other neighbours kindly agreed to get there early and help us set up.

The last time we’d used the Fire Station for a film night we’d had various problems getting the speakers working which delayed our start time. And we then ended up having to call someone from the fire service in every ten minutes to enter a password into the computer, as it kept going into sleep mode while playing the film.

Determined to avoid such problems this time, I had double checked that we could use their DVD player instead of the computer. I had made two visits to the Fire station specifically to check that I knew exactly how the equipment needed to be wired up and operated. And I’d played the first few minutes of the In Transition 2.0 DVD on their system twice. Everything worked fine.

Flick, jump, pause, click, click, whir.

What I hadn’t realised is that the Fire service always use the computer to play DVDs. Their separate DVD player hardly gets used at all. We’d made it half way through the documentary, but now here we were, sitting in the dark, in silence, with the entire success of our event firmly in the hands of this neglected gadget.

It could start playing fine again at any moment. But will it? Or do I need to do something? Should I tap it, pause it briefly, skip it back or forward a bit, take the disc out and polish it? Maybe it will sort itself out in a second. Then something breaks the tension. A loud voice. It’s a fireman, talking to another fireman. They are both driving round Manchester and a speaker in the room is broadcasting their conversation to us. And now the film is playing again… but the firemen are still talking. One of them asks the other a question. The film plays on. Then the answer comes back. He’s not quite sure. Everyone laughs. The fireman’s conversation stops. Thank goodness… but so does the DVD.

“I’ll just try wiping it”, I announce to the room, and then realise I can’t see the eject button in the dark so I turn the lights on. Everyone blinks. Becca suggests people take a break, get a drink etc. No one moves. Instead the room erupts into conversation, as people enthusiastically share their thoughts with each other about the film so far.

Having polished the DVD we realise it doesn’t have chapters on it, so a couple of minutes are spent skipping from the start of the DVD back to where we had got to. And this time… it’s working!

Except for a little bit more skipping near the end, we got through most of the second half of the DVD without further interruption, and made it to the end, at which point the room erupted once again, this time into applause. Ali then started capturing some people’s thoughts on camera, whilst others chatted. There were loads of positive comments. Someone from Transition City Manchester said they thought that Moss Side’s appearance in the documentary could really help to get more Transition groups started in other parts of the city. And a woman I’d met door knocking who’d not been to any of our events before came over to tell me that her and her 6 year old daughter who was with her had both really enjoyed the film and she’ll definitely come to our next event.

Unfortunately we didn’t manage to get all these comments on camera. It would have been nice to keep talking with everyone longer, but we were on a tight time schedule, so it was great when everyone pulled together to help clear up, and move tables and chairs back to where they needed to be, in time for when we had to leave the room. Thanks to everyone who was there, and to everyone involved in making the film. It’s been a really exciting experience.

Joel Prittie Transition Moss Side

Open Yardens event: gathering in the reclaimed square; Joel and Becca of Transition Moss Side.  All photographs by Hannah Beatrice.

Following the recent very successful previews of ‘In Transition 2.0′ in the communities who featured in the film, we are proud to unveil today how it will be released to the world over the next few months. There are various elements to this, the Website, The Guardian Open Weekend screening, the DVD, and Organising Screenings. Let’s start with the first one:

The Website

So, firstly, we are delighted to welcome this new website into the world! It features this blog which will bring all the latest news about the film, background information, reviews, a list of upcoming screenings, and a secure online shop where you can buy the DVD. It is bright and colourful and easy to navigate. It will be regularly updated with news and stories, so visit it often and keep up with developments (you can subscribe to its RSS feed to be kept up to date, or follow the film on Twitter @intransitionmov). You can also post your comments and reviews of the film.

The Guardian Open Weekend screening

We are delighted to announce a high profile screening of the film which takes place on Saturday March 24th at the Guardian Open Weekend in London, an event they describe as “a festival of ideas, innovation and entertainment”. It will be introduced on the evening by The Guardian’s environment correspondent John Vidal, and Rob Hopkins and the film’s producer Emma Goude will be there too. Unfortunately this event is now sold out which is a real shame, but hopefully this will be offset by the coverage we will get for the film.

The DVD

We have made a beautifully packaged DVD of the film, in full colour, yet entirely compostable packaging. It is a thing of great beauty and a joy to behold (really). You can either order single copies, or Transition initiatives will be able to buy DVDs in bundles of 20 or 50, at a very good discount, to sell at their screenings and other events. Those orders can be made here, and when you’ve ordered, if you are planning a screening, make sure you enter it in the list so people know about it!  We will start shipping as soon as we get them in stock, which should be around the third week of March.

Organising screenings

From April 1st, the film will be available for screenings by schools, TV channels, community groups, businesses, festivals, football clubs, on oil rigs, government cabinet meetings or universities. We have set up an easy-to-use licence fee calculator which will ask you a couple of quick questions and then calculate a fee for your screening. Simplicity itself. This will hopefully mean that organising a screening, while also supporting Transition Network and ensuring that there will be an ‘In Transition 3.0′ couldn’t be simpler. You’ll also still be able to buy DVDs in bulk to sell at the event (guaranteed to go like hot cakes).

Why we need to charge for screenings

‘In Transition 2.0′ cost us about £30,000 to make. We didn’t get any grants or funding to do that, other than about £1,800 which was raised on top of that through crowd-funding which enabled us to film the overseas stories. We would really like to be able to make ‘In Transition 3.0′, but will only be able to do so if everyone chips in and helps out. We have tried very hard to make sure that the licences for screenings are very reasonable, and also being able to buy DVDs at a discount means that you’ll be able to make a few quid too. We think this film will mean a lot to you, and we are trusting that everyone will work with us on this.  That said, if you feel that that is too much of a stretch, do get in touch.