Our new feature-length documentary

"With this documentary Happen Films are revealed as masters of their craft honed over the years through an ethos of DIY minimalism to create a powerful and loving portrait of life lived to the full in the relationship to place, kin and community."

– David Holmgren, permaculture co-originator

What happens when the values of the culture you’ve always known no longer align with how you see the world?

The New Peasants offers an intimate look into the life of Meg, Patrick, Zephyr, and 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.

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 from a supermarket or owned a car. The household, living intentionally below the poverty line and meeting 80% of their needs without using money, is nonetheless 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. Yet the decision to live this way has brought profound challenges for their family, in the form of their eldest son’s encounters with the law. These experiences have produced immense grief, but, in the end, also great joy.

This film shares 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.

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.

"A gorgeous film about wealth, just not the kind you may expect. The nobility of peasantry is in full effect throughout this lovingly crafted work. Brave, funny, kind, proper. Amen to the handmade life!"

– Martin Shaw author of Smokehole

"Overwhelmingly beautiful portrayal of lives lived with purpose, beauty and courage in all its rawness, pain and worthiness."

– Su Dennett, permaculture elder

"A resplendent open window into the lived experiences of conscious simplification, connection to land and intentional community compass."

– Uncle Charles Davison, Jen Ridley and family

"The New Peasants offers an engaging and inspiring insight into one family’s response to the predicament of our times."

– Helena Norberg-Hodge, writer and filmmaker