What happens when the values of the culture you’ve always known no longer align with how you see the world?
The New Peasants provides an intimate look into the life of Meg, Patrick, and their son Woody. A family who, for 20 years, have been transitioning away from modern industrial culture toward a radically simple, sustainable, and beautiful way of life. Building upon our two previous short films with this family – Creatures of Place (2.4 million views) and From Weedy Forests (2.1M views) – this feature film dives deep into their story in a way we haven’t captured before.
Concerns about the industrial food system and environmental crises provided the family’s initial motivation to live differently. Now it’s 15 years since they’ve eaten food from a supermarket or owned a car. They intentionally live below the poverty line, meeting 80% of their needs without using money – yet they’re rich in so many ways. Wealth is found in their cellar of preserved foods, connections with community, saved seeds, homesteading skills and the time to focus on what really matters in life.
This film offers insight into the unfolding journey of a family rejecting the mainstream culture and working to create a new one. A culture and economy that draw on ways of the past while stepping joyfully into the future. For everything they’ve let go, something has been gained. With every challenge, something learned.
The environmental, social, and economic challenges the world is facing are better understood and more widely discussed now than ever before, but many of us lack a vision for what we can do to address them. This is one family’s response to the predicament of our time, offering an inspiring glimpse into the kind of future, culture, and economy we can create. This family’s way of living shows that transformative change begins at the home and community level and that we can all participate in creating a better world.
