"Efficacy is the ability to produce a desired result. But are the results we're achieving, the ones we intent? Our intelligence is remaking the world before our eyes. What kind of future do you want to see?"
- Jeff Bridges
Academy Award winner Jeff Bridges shares the screen with scientists, profound thinkers and a dazzling array of Earth's living creatures to reveal eye-opening concepts about ourselves and our past, providing fresh insights into our subconscious motivations and their unintended consequences.
Living in the Future's Past shows how no one can predict how major changes might emerge from the spontaneous actions of the many. How energy takes many forms as it moves through and animates everything. How, as we come to understand our true connection to our environment, we will need to redefine our expectations, not as what we will lose, but what we might gain by preparing for something different.
- Includes bonus interviews with Jeff Bridges, director Susan Kucera, and interviewees from the film
FEATURED IN THE FILM
- Wesley Clark, (Ret.) General, Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander
- Dr. Piers Sellers, NASA Astronaut and Research Scientist
- Bob Inglis, Former South Carolina Congressman (R)
- Dr. Timothy Morton, Philosopher and Author
- Dr. Rich Pancos, Biochemistry Professor
- Dr. Ruth Gates, Marine Biologist
- Dr. Renee Lerzman, Author
- Dr. Leonard Mlodinow, Physicist
- Dr. Bruce Hood, Professor of Developmental Psychology
- Dr. Mark Plotkin, Ethnobiologist
- Dr. Amy Jacobson, Evolutionary Biologist
STUDY GUIDE
Download the Study Guide for the film >
FILMMAKER'S STATEMENT: "Living in the Future's Past is a definite departure from the usual 'ecological documentary'. As a Documentarian, I've always been interested in what makes us and other animals tick. The film gives us a greater understanding of both the physical and the unconscious mechanisms at play in our inner and outer world, like 'optimal foraging strategy' or sexual selection. We're not the only animals with social and economic relationships to the environment. "
-Susan Kucera
Reviews & Awards
"A stunning environmental documentary"
-IndieWire
"Though it is a sobering account, Living in the Future's Past invites us all to consider the real changes that we can make in order to change our culture of consumption, to mindfully examine what we need rather than what we want. While the outlook often seems bleak, the message is to take the future into our own hands -- to change our behavior and change the world."
-LA Times
"Suggests humanity -- through a series of individual practices in the name of adding comfort and stability to our lives -- is shepherding its own demise through ignorance...Presents philosophical, scientific, easily implementable, and potentially course-rerouting fixes we can responsibly incorporate into everyday life as we aim to build a better, sustainable future on the planet we call home."
-Entertainment Weekly
"Offers a decidedly non-partisan look at the dismal state of the environment, featuring some of the country's leading big-thinkiers -- philosophers, NASA engineers, former military generals -- and of course [Jeff] Bridges himself, guiding the ship with interstitial ruminations like 'what we perceive as reality comes from the value judgments that exist in our minds'."
-The Daily Beast
"Powerful...Director Susan Kucera has achieved something masterful with her film...Both alarming and hopeful, Living in the Future's Past eloquently presents inconvenient but important-to-consider truths to explore and ponder, as the cosmic energy clock ticks"
-Santa Barbara Independent
"Not your typical documentary vision of doom and gloom on the environment...Managed to find that ever elusive happy medium on a polarizing subject while retaining intellectual honesty...Well-paced and highly thought-provoking throughout...Will spark a much more fruitful discussion on a vitally important problem which affects us all"
-The 405
"Explores the complexities of the human species' role in relation to nature by discussing such topics by energy, evolution, ecology, and psychology. Weaves together images of nature as a poignant reminder of the fragility of species...Comes at a time when it is truly needed, though the question remains can we as a species come together and claim responsibility for our actions?"
-Picture This Post