Happen Films, and the Abdallah House doco

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I've been a big fan of Happen Films, ever since I saw the first short film that Jordan made a few years ago about Agari Permaculture Farm (see below) - just up the road in Longwood. I've been following their releases on their YouTube channel ever since. I've been particularly impressed by the professionalism in production, a rare thing to see for the types of subject matter that I'm attracted to.



Antoinette and Jordan were out in Australia for the launch of their feature film Living the Change. Unfortunately I missed the premiere Melbourne screening in early March. I reached out to the local BEAM sustainability group to see if there was interest in a local screening, and got a very positive response. I was in the process of organising an event when I was contacted by Antoinette out of the blue, who was keen to spend 2 days filming at Abdallah House for a short doco about our place.

Richard Telford, Jordan Osmond,
Antoinette Wilson and Kunie Yoshimoto
It was an absolute pleasure having them stay with us, and sharing our humble abode. I must admit that I was quite nervous about sharing our story to a camera, and there was lots of takes - I have been assured of the wonders of editing to bring my story to life. Jordan estimates that the finished doco will be about 15 minutes long and should be released in May. So keep your eye out for that one.

Taking the opportunity of having the film makers at our home, we decided to have a screening in the living room. With only a few days to organise the event we managed to get a pretty good turnout, with 19 of us - including the mayor! She was keen for it to be seen by all of the councilors. The film was great, and the discussion afterwards got as all thinking about what we could do in our local community to make it a better place to live.

I encourage you to check out the preview below, and if it grabs you, host your own local screening. Jordan and Antoinette have made it accessible to anyone to host - and in doing so, you'll be supporting the creation of more work by Happen Films.

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