Downtime: Paula Temple

Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower (2017)

Dir: Joe Piscatella

This is a documentary about Joshua Wong, a teenager who started the umbrella movement in response to the Chinese government’s threat to implement Chinese curricula in Hong Kong schools.

My wife and I stumbled across this on Netflix, and it became such an inspiration to me that I decided to name a track on my album, Edge of Everything, after him – it’s called Joshua and Goliath. Joshua was just 15 when he and a classmate started a student group called ‘Scholarism’ and, due to their tenacity, this small school group grew over the course of just a year into pro-democracy protests of more than 100,000 people.

I think what makes this documentary so compelling is the fact that it was kids who had the courage to stand up for what is important for their future. We see this again with Greta Thunberg and climate change. This gives me real hope for the future that the youth are coming together to challenge the lawmakers and leaders who act only in the best interest of the elite.

City of Joy (2016)

Dir: Madeleine Gavin

City of Joy is the title of the film and also the name of the leadership group helping women in the Democratic Republic of Congo who have survived violence. A group of local women started this group in 2011 to provide survivors of violence with therapy and life skills to aid them in successfully moving forward with love, life and work. That many of these women felt ashamed of the violence they suffered was devastating. It was heart-warming to see how they opened up and came alive while living at the City of Joy home and inspiring to see these women find strength and self-confidence through building friendships and shared stories.

The Third Industrial Revolution: A Radical New Sharing Economy (2017)

Dir: Eddy Moretti

This is a VICE documentary that records Jeremy Rifkin’s lecture outlining his 2011 book The Third Industrial Revolution: How Lateral Power Is Transforming Energy, the Economy, and the World. After watching the movie Zeitgeist, I have been particularly interested in a moneyless economy.

While Jeremy’s plan for the third industrial revolution does not eliminate money, it focuses on moving from hierarchical to lateral power, thus reducing the focus on greed and competition. He speaks of reforming the way we communicate digitally using renewable electricity, which will lead to economic and environmental changes that we desperately need in this time of climate crisis. He is currently working with China and Germany on ways to revamp their infrastructure as it will take a significant amount of work, money and planning to change our current and destructive system. Every country in the world needs to get on board if we are to prevent the extinction of our species on the planet.

This documentary has given me hope that we are not doomed as a species, but that change needs to happen fast.