NEW FILM /FIRST EARTH Film Uncompromising Ecological Archi

FIRST EARTH is a documentary about the movement towards a massive paradigm shift for shelter -- building healthy houses in the old ways, out of the very earth itself, and living together like in the old days, by recreating villages. It is a sprawling film, shot on location from the West Coast to West Africa. An audiovisual manifesto filmed over the course of 4 years and 4 continents, FIRST EARTH makes the case that earthen homes are the healthiest housing in the world; and that since it still takes a village to raise a healthy child, it is incumbent upon us to transform our suburban sprawl into eco-villages, a new North American dream.
Chocking up over 300,000 hits on YouTube even before its official release, FIRST

EARTH is not a how-to film; rather, it's a why-to film. It establishes the appropriateness of earthen building in every cultural context, under all socio-economic conditions, from third-world communities to first-world countrysides, from Arabian deserts to American urban jungles. In the age of environmental and economic collapse, peak oil and other converging emergencies, the solution to many of our ills might just be getting back to basics, focusing on food, clothes, and shelter. We need to think differently about house and home, for material and for spiritual reasons, both the personal and the political.

Because we believe that as many people as possible should have the option of seeing the FIRST EARTH film, regardless of their financial abilities, for a limited time only we are making beta versions of the 12 chapters of the film available over the internet for free! The DVD version of the film has high-quality video and audio and includes extras.
The individual chapters of the film can also be watched separately from one another. It won't have the same effect as watching the whole film from start to finish, but as part of our vision to make the content as accessible as possible, the chapters can be viewed one at a time.

Chapters 1 through 12 - The Entire Film
Chapter 1 - What's Wrong With Architecture
Chapter 2 - African Earth
Chapter 3 - American Earth
Chapter 4 - Why Earth
Chapter 5 - Empowering Earth
Chapter 6 - Another Earth Is Possible
Chapter 7 - European Earth
Chapter 8 - Arabian Earth
Chapter 9 - Urban Earth
Chapter 10 - Inner City Earth
Chapter 11 - International Earth
Chapter 12 - Future Earth

Cast
All of the modern cob-building movement's major players were interviewed for the documentary. Over the course of filming, we have amassed over a hundred hours of footage of awe-inspiring cob projects and pearls of wisdom from pre-eminent thinkers. To learn more about earthen building, click on the names below to read transcripts of their talks and watch videos of their spoken words.
Becky Bee
Katy Bryce & Adam Weismann
Meka Bunch & Dragonfly
Elke Cole
Stuart Cowan
Carole Crews
Salma Samar Damluji
Kiko Denzer
Chellis Glendinning
Richard Heinberg
Alfie Howard
Derrick Jensen
Janell Kapoor
Sun Ray Kelly
Joseph Kennedy
James Howard Kunstler
Mark Lakeman
Ian Marcuse
Kevin McCabe
Bridget Miner & Ellie Miner
Daniel Quinn
Tim Ream
Boots Riley
David Room
Michael G. Smith
Starhawk
Sunflower New Moon
Bob Theis
Andy Thomson
Eugene Tsui

Editing
David Sheen
In addition to authoring the scratch video THE RED PILL (2003), David Sheen has been documenting, studying, designing, and building ecological housing since 2001. He apprenticed with Ianto Evans and Linda Smiley at the North American School of Natural Building, and at Michael Smith's Emerald Earth. He also learned biomimicry, the study of nature's design principles and its application to human habitats, with architect Eugene Tsui.

Music
Ilya Yakovlev
Music composer and producer Ilya Yakovlev, was born 29.01.74 in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and now lives in Tel-Aviv, Israel. Ilya plays and composes instrumental music, pursuing different styles and exploring all kinds of possibilities in search of his unique sound. He has been involved in a number of projects with various artists, writing songs and movie soundtracks. His focus is on instrumental, ambient, and electronic music, mainly concentrating on creating mood and atmosphere. Additionally, Ilya is a professional graphic designer and industrial designer.

Video
Michael Blaha
Ingrid Severson
Petra Janopaul
John Pilgrim
Yakov Levi
Viki Zakharova
Timothy Doh
Julie Haddow
Audio
Hartley Weinberg
Translation
Hasan Murtaza
Zohar Regev
Uri Gordon

Production
Peter Solti
Gregory Greene
Gregory Greene is a Toronto-based filmmaker with a background in social and political documentaries. His television credits include BRAVO!Õs acclaimed series Arts & Minds and MuchMusicÕs documentary series Musicians in the War Zone. His television film credits include Prom Fight: The Marc Hall Story and SuhailÕs Jihad. His latest production, The End of Suburbia, is an independent film that has caused controversy around the world, with rave reviews in the mainstream press, from the New York Times to The Toronto Star, and a ubiquitous presence within the alternative press. It has become the informational tool of choice to the growing Peak Oil movement, comprised of a wide range of industry professionals, NGOs and citizen groups spanning the political spectrum.