Film Review: A Message from the Future

Perhaps you've heard of the short film A Message from the Future, narrated by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and written by Avi Lewis. It imagines life in the United States a few decades after the Green New Deal, in a future where we have come together to solve our climatic and socioeconomic problems. In this future, a federal jobs guarantee gives everyone an option of meaningful work and also provides labor for green infrastructure projects. A Message from the Future also explains the beginning of climate change awareness in the United States and the role of profit in shaping how we have responded to the climate crisis thus far. Its sequel, A Message from the Future II: The Years of Repair, released after the first one, tells the story of this utopia being brought about by strikes and other activism after various catastrophes, including another COVID pandemic, occurred in the beginning of the 2020s. Once governments started listening to the huge crowds of people who took part in these strikes, they began rebuilding the economy around the core of essential work (farm work and care/health work) during the Years of Repair. In addition, these repairs also included the repairing of colonizing countries' relationships with the people they colonized, and the repairing of relationships between the Global North and the Global South.

We at Greenguide recommend that you watch these films. They imagine a future that is beautiful for everyone, where inequality has perished and we have stopped contributing to the climate crisis. The second film in particular shows this future rising out of a troubled present, showing that it may not be too far out of reach. To us, the one drawback of these films is that they are old: The first one was created in 2019; the second, 2020. The first film characterizes the 2020s as the Decade of the Green New Deal. Six years in to this decade, we haven't gotten anywhere close to the changes the film describes. Watching them today, one could wonder if these futures are possible at all. However, they ultimately implore us to hold on to hope. "We can be whatever we have the courage to see," Ocasio-Cortez narrates in A Message. By showing us visions of a beautiful future, these films inspire us to imagine our own futures, and what we will do today to create them.

A Message from the Future was directed by Jim Batt and Kim Boekbinder, written by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Avi Lewis, inspired by an article by Kate Aronoff, narrated by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, produced by Molly Crabapple, Lauren Feeney, and Avi Lewis, and illustrated by Molly Crabapple. It is available to watch in various places, including YouTube. Run time 07:35. A Message from the Future II was directed by Kim Boekbinder and Jim Batt, written by Opal Tometi and Avi Lewis, narrated by Opal Tometi, Gael García Bernal, Nnimmo Bassey, and Emma Thompson, produced by Avi Lewis, Lauren Feeney, Marc Weiss, Katie McKenna, and Sharp as Knives, and illustrated by Molly Crabapple. It is also available on YouTube. Run time 09:10.