ABOUT THE PROJECT
LOGLINE
Recovering military engineer travels into former “enemy” territory, Cuba, Kerala and Slovenia, returning with uplifting women-led societal solutions that could save the world-on-the-brink his 12-year-old son will inherit.
SYNOPSIS
When a young arms dealer discovers his work is harming families in less affluent societies, he has an ethical crisis and begins a decades-long journey to redeem himself and make the world a better place. SAVING WALDEN’S WORLD is a revealing new film following Jim Merkel as he raises Walden, a budding scientist, in an off-the-grid homestead and wonders: could the very people his past-life’s work targeted hold the keys to a sustainable planet?
A journey into “enemy” territory ensues, meeting powerful women who reshape society to work for all. Far from affluent utopias, Kerala, Cuba, and Slovenia offer women free college, access to contraception, maternity leave, childcare, dentistry, and healthcare. Services unimaginable in much of Jim’s blue-collar America.
As earth temperatures soar, the stakes couldn’t get higher.
In South Asia, the Caribbean and Europe Jim learns from women’s empowerment movements that embrace the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The decades of social justice yield dividends—something America struggles to do. A wake-up call for a new American dream based not in a nostalgic myth of exceptionalism, but in the true story of working-class American thrift and altruism.
In nearly 100 countries totaling more than half the world’s people, fertility rates are below replacement levels (2.1 child families) related to higher education, family planning and greater female status. Humanity could retreat from overshooting earth’s capacity to what E.O. Wilson termed “Half Earth,” meaning, 50 percent of earth for nature, averting the 6th extinction. The key? Making life better for women and inspiring the wealthy to shrink their eco-footprints.
PROJECT TYPE Documentary Feature
DIRECTOR Jim Merkel
SCREENWRITER Dana Rae Warren, Karen Everett
PRODUCER Santhi Rajasekhar, Jim Merkel
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER Susan Cutting, Jane Dwinell
CO-PRODUCER Robert Maraist
IMPACT PRODUCER Pamela Biery
Associate Producer Catherine Murphy
WEBSITE savingwaldensworld.org
FACEBOOK Facebook Page
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