Joanna Macy and the Great Turning is a short film about the societal shift now underway from an industrial growth society to a more sustainable civilization.

Based on an extensive interview with well-known writer, teacher, and activist Joanna Macy, the film lays out Macy’s understanding of “the Great Turning” as the third major revolution of human existence after the agricultural and industrial revolutions.

“The most remarkable feature of this historical moment on Earth,” says Joanna Macy, “Is not that we are on the way to destroying the world — we've actually been on the way for quite a while. It is that we are beginning to wake up, as from a millennia-long sleep, to a whole new relationship to our world, to ourselves and each other.”

Macy considers how human beings have previously responded to the major challenges of our past and shows how we are doing so once again, in hundreds of ways both small and large.

Illustrated with beautiful footage shot around the world, the film is at once sobering, insightful, and inspiring. The Great Turning is ultimately a call to take part in this new “great adventure” in order to help create a more life-sustaining world.

The author of 8 books, Joanna Macy is considered one of the world’s leading sustainability educators. Macy shares her knowledge through her books, workshops, courses and talks. Her work addresses psychological and spiritual issues, Buddhist thought, and contemporary science. She serves as an adjunct professor to three graduate schools in the San Francisco Bay Area: the Starr King School for the Ministry, the University of Creation Spirituality, and the California Institute of Integral Studies.