BELLINGEN: The Promised Land
2021 · 104m · Documentary
By the 1970s the global counter-culture movement had well and truly reached Australia, seeing young, educated hippies from well-to-do families moving to the Bellingen region to live an alternate lifestyle. Back then, Bellingen was a rundown, quiet country town with business in decline. Then, new ideas, new ways of living and a new status quo began to take control. What some called an influx of hippies, others called an invasion on the conservative lifestyle of farmers, causing a clash of ideals. Compiling countless hours of 8mm footage and historical photos, retired journo Peter Geddes and filmmaker Peter Gailley paint the historical landscape of how modern Bellingen came to be, following the cultural movement that eventually became the backbone of Bellingen’s identity.
More Like This
Forest Gardening with Robert Hart
1996
Hart's Forest Gardening introduces a way of working alongside nature- an approach that results in great productivity with minimal maintenance, and a method for transforming even a small cottage garden into a diverse and inviting habitat for songbirds, butterflies, and other wildlife. Based on the model of a natural woodland, a forest garden incorporates a wide variety of useful plants, including fruit and nut trees, perennial herbs, and vegetables. Robert Hart blends history, philosophy, anthropology, and seasonal gardening wisdom, which together comprise a remarkable testament to the pleasures of "hands-off" as well as hands-on gardening. Practical features include: Design guidelines for creating your own perennial food-producing garden Lists of recommended plants and varieties, An explanation of how plants in different levels or "stories" --from ground covers to full-sized trees--coexist and interact in a healthy and productive landscape.
More info →
How To Go Out of Your Mind: The LSD Crisis
1966 · ★ 7
Back in the 1960's a former Harvard professor stopped giving A's, B's and C's and started handing out LSD. his name was Timothy Leary and he was at the center of a controversy in North America over the growing use of psychedelic drugs. Leary ran a research center in New York state where young people took 'acid' while he took notes. The media took notice.
More info →
Beat Generation
2014 · ★ 9.2
Tells the story of the wonderful and long-lasting friendship between Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs that gave birth to the Beat Generation movement.
More info →
Like It Is
1968 · ★ 5.4
This documentary on the "youth movement" of the late 1960s focuses on the hippie pot smoking/free love culture in the San Francisco Bay area.
More info →
Orange Sunshine
2016 · ★ 6.6
The never-before-told story of the Brotherhood of Eternal Love – a spiritual group of surfers and hippies in Southern California that became the largest suppliers of psychedelic drugs in the world during the 1960s and early 1970s. Bonded by their dreams to fight social injustice and spread peace, this unlikely band of free-spirited idealists quickly transformed into a drug-smuggling empire and at the same time inadvertently invented the modern illegal drug trade. At the head of the Brotherhood, and the heart of this story, is the anti-capitalistic husband and wife team, who made it their mission to change the world through LSD.
More info →
Breathing Together: Revolution of the Electric Family
1971 · ★ 6.5
The title of this Canadian documentary may have some relation to Canadian Marshall McLuhan's theories. It combines interview with famous U.S. militants of the '60s, such as Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman, with reenactments of their Chicago trials (i.e., the "Chicago Eight," etc.). Other figures of cultural interest from the time, including Alan Ginsberg and Buckminster Fuller, are interviewed or featured. The filmmaker indicates his belief that powerful forces in the U.S. government worked together to suppress American radicals. This view, widely disbelieved at the time, has since been confirmed.
More info →
Changing
1971 · ★ 5.5
After adopting a hippie lifestyle, a man finds his home life enhanced while becoming isolated at work.
More info →
My Name is Abbie
1981
A countercultural icon, Hoffman is remembered as one of the greatest radicals of the civil rights and anti-war movements of the sixties. In this film, which documents the first interview he gave in 1980 when he decided to reveal his identity after spending seven years in hiding, he traces the evolution of political activism in America. "My name is Abbie... orphan of America."
More info →
The Kingdom of Fun
1989
The largest leisure and shopping complex in Europe, the Metro Centre in Tynemouth, and its creator John Hall.
More info →
Mudflat
1980
Years ago, artists would walk around the muck at the edge of the San Francisco Bay in Emeryville, and build loads of sculptures out there on the flats, created from driftwood and found objects that drivers would enjoy as they motored south on the old Highway 17 (known in numerous radio ads as 'Highway 17, The Nimitz'). Grabbing material off someone else’s work was considered fair game and part of the fun, and contributed a kinetic dynamic to the ongoing display. Now the place is a park, and the sculptures are gone, but you can see what it used to be like in this neat and funny documentary by Ric Reynolds, augmented by Erich Seibert’s wonderful musique-concrète/time-lapse sequences. The flashback circus sequence includes Scott Beach and Bill Irwin. Sculptors interviewed include Walt Zucker, Tony Puccio, Robert Sommer, Ron & Mary Bradden, and Bob Kaminsky.
More info →Druid Heights
2015
Druid Heights is a short documentary film by Marcy Mendelson about a wild & wooly place. California’s hidden bohemia. Where sex, drugs and philosophy thrived among the eucalyptus just a few miles north of the Golden Gate.
More info →