Update from Korea: Change Starts with You

In the last ten days, we’ve organized multiple small ‘rough cut’ screenings with varied audiences in Korea, with the purpose of collecting feedback on the film. It’s been a good experience and we’re thankful for those who helped host the screenings, Eun-duk Seo and Boo Young Song in Daejeon, Noah Park in Seoul, and Seonghyun Choi in Hongcheon; as well, to all of those who took part in the screenings and feedback sessions.

We’ve learned a lot about our audience in these weeks. Just as many of the characters in the film, they are generally young-ish people (25-35) from urban areas who are the second generation to grow up in a city and who have a sense that the lifestyle they were born into is not really all that good for them, for the earth, or for the people around them.

This encompasses a large and growing group of people, spread throughout urban cores and suburban tracts around the world, who have realized that there needs to be a tremendous change in the way we live our lives; in our consumption, in the way we produce food and goods, and in the way we treat each other and our planet.

Yet most of the people in this group have no idea where to start.

The Final Straw offers a place to start, and the film is just the beginning.

Suhee and I wish to build a place where it is safe to question — at the very root — how we live. A place to see that a new way of doing things is completely within our control. As natural farmer and author Yoshikazu Kawaguchi told us, the many people who visit his farm seek different kinds of change, but all of them have a common understanding that:

…society won’t change for them, the government won’t change for them, others won’t change for them. Eventually they realize that nothing will change, unless they change the lives they live for themselves.

We have begun to realize the amazing truth and power in Kawaguchi’s observations. And we’re excited to be moving into a time in our lives where we can put it into practice, and help others put it into practice as well.

Suhee and I are moving our operations to the San Francisco Bay Area next week, where we will host a final ‘rough cut’ screening (TBD) before we finish final soundtrack, color, and editing work in preparation for the film’s public release.

As you know if you’ve been following our journey, Final Straw is about more than just a film. During our time in the U.S., we’ll be looking to start meeting with like-minded organizations, highlighting their efforts and developing our own as we look toward the future.

Hopefully we’ll see you there, somewhere.

For now, please enjoy some photos from these beautiful moments at our rough cut screenings over the past few weeks!