Film Production

Over many years, I have worked on activist and professional documentaries. The jewel of my work, thus far, is A Bold Peace (on Facebook). Inspired by the fieldwork and survey results of my former graduate student Matthew Eddy (UO PhD, 2013), we worked to initiate a major documentary film. In 2012, we were awarded seed money from the Jubitz Family Foundation, we then raised additional funds from crowdsourcing and several small grants, and in 2015 we were granted another $10,000 from the Jubitz Family Foundation to complete the feature-length documentary on Costa Rica. Several gifts have also helped fund the translation of the film, now available in three languages. 

A Bold Peace has won over a dozen awards at over 200 theatrical screenings on four continents. It is now available in three languages and distributed internationally. Our first major broadcast contract is with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, scheduled for cable broadcast in Canada in late 2019.

Our award-winning feature documentary on Costa Rica’s happy, healthy and demilitarized social democratic society – see the film press kit in pdf – is available at Bullfrog Films (English and Spanish). 

How to watch A Bold Peace? 

 

We gifted copies of the film to several past presidents of Costa Rica and in 2018 we gave a copy to Costa Rican President Carlos Alvarado during the 70th anniversary (and now national holiday) of abolishing the army.

 

Production of Japanese Demilitarization: A Successful Model Under Threat

Matthew and I have begun fundraising for and production of our next film. Our May 2018 trip to Tokyo involved filmed interviews with prominent scholars and peace activists. The struggle to preserve Art. 9 of the Japanese Constitution offers a pivotal moment to examine the conjuncture of a new militaristic nationalism on the political right vs. a peace oriented and anti-nuclear left that understands the economic, public health, and educational value of the peace dividends in Japan. We will return in May of 2019 with the aim of completing a significant portion of filming and archival acquisition.

Since the completion of A Bold Peace we have developed a framework for a series of films exploring the environmental and social benefits arising from disarmament.  Our second film is now in production after completing a month of film work in Japan. Japan is a nation of 126.7 million people, which makes it the 11th largest nation in the world and unlike Costa Rica, Japan was one of the most militarized nations in history just 75 years ago. It is the only nation to have nuclear bombs dropped on its cities, killing hundreds of thousands of people. In the aftermath of WWII, the people of Japan bore the costs of war and embraced demilitarization, democratization, and international diplomacy, principles enshrined in the postwar peace constitution, and specifically Article 9. By 1968, Japan emerged as the second largest capitalist economy in the world, still ranking 3rd. Their investments in infrastructure, education, and healthcare produced one of the most prosperous and healthy nations in the world within just a few decades. The “economic miracle” of Japan is closely intertwined with the “peace dividends” they enjoyed after WWII: free of the burden of military spending, they prioritized economic, human, and infrastructural development. Japan ranks as one of the ten most peaceful countries in the world. It is unique among the largest countries in the world in not having a single combat casualty since WWII. However, Japans peace is facing unprecedented challenges as militaristic nationalism is on the rise within Japan, powerful groups inside and out (including American military contractors and security interests) seek to change Article 9 of their constitution, and external powers advance provocative threats. Our next film tells this complicated and powerful story. To begin this project, in 2018 we received a $10,000 seed grant from the Jane Addams Peace Association Disarmament Fund.

Based on our study of World Values Survey data, the Global Peace Index, interviews in multiple countries, and archival work from various countries, Matthew Eddy and I plan to write a book (possibly titled A Bold Peace and the Climate Crisis: Demilitarization, Democracy and Global Cooperation). The book will study comparative paths of demilitarization, critically examining real-world peace institutions that uphold democracy, international law, and embrace environmental reconciliation. Expanding on our films, we will explore the ideas first outlined in Immanuel Kant’s Perpetual Peace and show how countries with low defense spending relative to GDP per capita, high rates of international treaty ratification, low rates of violence internally and externally, and high levels of internal trust and security form a bulwark for protecting democracy, international law and security, and multilateral governance, all while achieving much better quality of life and environmental outcomes when compared to more militarized nations. Countries like Iceland, New Zealand, Denmark, Portugal, Austria, Costa Rica, Uruguay, Canada, Singapore, and Japan hold the promise for advancing the UN Charter, the UN Declaration of Human Rights, and possess the cooperative ethos needed to address the global climate emergency. 

 

Hosting President Oscar Arias at the UO for PeaceJam 2017

This short film on Oscar Arias was produced for the 2015 Rotary Peace Symposium in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where Oscar Arias was the keynote speaker. We invited him to the UO for the 2017 PeaceJam and the same short film introduced President Arias to the hundreds of attendees.

Oscar Arias: Nobel Peace Laureate from Michael Dreiling on Vimeo.

 

The Ad & the Ego feature documentary, consultant with Parallax Pictures

 

 

Detroit Newspaper Strike, 1995.

I will work on getting a link up for this activist documentary.