The directors of a new New Zealand documentary hope viewers will walk away wanting to change the world from the roots up.



Christchurch-born Antoinette Wilson and her Australian partner Jordan Osmond have spent the last year filming Kiwi couples, families and individuals for their up-and-coming documentary Living the Change, premiering in Tauranga on March 1.

The couple, who have a YouTube following of nearly 70,000 people on their Happen Films page, intended to make a series of short films, but after meeting many Kiwis along the way with compelling stories, their shorts turned into a feature-length film.

The film follows various farmers, business people and individuals who are making an effort to respond to current environmental crisis.

Supplied Living The Change directors Antoinette Wilson and Jordan Osmond.

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It features a former financial trader who left the corporate world in Australia to establish a permaculture property in the Bay of Plenty, a farmer who is changing his traditional Hawke's Bay sheep and cattle station to one that uses diverse, integrated, regenerative farming systems; and a couple who created a luscious forest-garden in Riverton, among others.

Osmond hoped the film would encourage Kiwis to consider their consumption and its impact on the planet.

"It's main message is that individuals have the power to create change, your individual actions do make a difference and while these issues are big and scary like climate change – and they are serious and urgent things – individual actions can address that," he said.

"It's not just waiting for the politicians to do something, there definitely needs to be that, but we feel like the change is going to come from the grassroots level and the government and businesses will follow."

Wilson said she and Osmond returned to New Zealand after living in Victoria, Australia where they met while making another documentary A Simpler Way, which followed an experiment that saw a group of people living together in a commune.

After arriving in New Zealand for the first time, Osmond was devastated and shocked to see the impact of farming had on the landscape.

"I had this popular view of what New Zealand would be – like mountains, beautiful forests, you see all the beautiful landscapes and photos and you hear stories and you definitely experience that in your travels, but something that really surprised me was the extent to which farming has impacted New Zealand particularly dairy, sheep and pine plantations," he said.

"That really stood out to me, like, 'this isn't the image I had of New Zealand'."

Wilson had worked at Christchurch's Environment and Peace Information Centre growing up.

She hadn't returned home for nearly 10 years, but said the landscape in her region was surprising.

"Canterbury and Southland is just like different a landscape and it's a distressing landscape. We're kind of taught to think those green rolling hills and pastures are beautiful, but it's green desert, there's nothing happening in that soil except bad stuff, there's no real life in there, and that soil is the life of the planet," she said.

Experts on various environmental matters also feature in the film.

Living The Change is scheduled to screen at Wellington's Penthouse Cinema on March 5 and can be purchased online at livingthechangefilm.com from March 10.