BACK TO THE GARDEN

NORTHWEST TRACKING
BACK TO THE GARDEN
US 2010
DIRECTOR: KEVIN TOMLINSON / SEATTLE
Twenty years after Woodstock, Seattle filmmaker Kevin Tomlinson interviewed a group of back-to-the-land hippies at a backcountry healing gathering. He found that small embers of ’60s dropouts were still intact and thriving, raising families while refining their hippie idealism. Doubtful about how seriously this would be viewed in 1988, the footage sat untouched for almost 20 years. In 2010, Tomlinson took another look. What these off-grid hippies were talking about then—sustainability, living more simply, sustainable lives, love for the earth, questioning authority, self-reliance, and community responsibility—now seems to be blossoming with incredible force and coming full circle, as climate change, war, consumerism, and the green movement take center stage in mainstream discussion. Tomlinson again set out to find his original subjects, this time with new questions. Had their radical off-grid lifestyles and ideals survived? Had anyone gone mainstream? What about their children—did they rebel against the rebel generation? (70 mins.) With director Kevin Tomlinson in attendance.