Help Take One Action to bring Real Utopias to life

JOIN US TO DECENTRALISE FILM FESTIVAL PROGRAMMING AND FUND COMMUNITY-LED SCREENINGS AND EVENTS ACROSS SCOTLAND IN 2025

Here at Take One Action we regularly have the joy of witnessing the transformative potential of film and storytelling. Amidst continuous cycles of bad news, we feel a responsibility to highlight and raise awareness of the impact of oppression, exploitation and violence on global and local communities, whilst also bringing hope and tools for tangible change. It is difficult not to feel worn down by rising austerity and poverty in the UK, restrictions on press and political freedoms, the unfettered rise of artificial intelligence, the global impact of continued colonialism and exploitative capitalism, and the climate crisis. 

Hopelessness, however, cannot be our default. Our former online public squares might be controlled by a handful of tech bros – but fear not! We want to build beautiful alternatives with you.

WAIT, WE CAN HELP

“No one way works, it will take all of us shoving at the thing from all sides to bring it down.” (Diane Di Prima)

This is why we have decided to make the focus of our 2025 film festivals REAL UTOPIAS. Like you, we want to build a more just and fulfilling world where everyone thrives, and we know that it will take lots of small actions from many of us to get there. Our chosen theme is about embracing radical imagination first and foremost. We want to look at the small and profound changes happening in the here and now that will sow the seeds of better local and global futures for all of us: how we can learn from them, adapt them and nurture them together? It’s about looking at the real and grounded realm of possibility but through a lens of imagination.

Our Real Utopias film festivals will take place in five cities across Scotland – Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, Aberdeen and Inverness – in September and October 2025 and will feature films exploring already-existing seeds of  Real Utopias, as well as confronting the sites of injustice preventing us from getting there. But in addition to this, and as part of our commitment to decentralising and democratising film programming, we want to work with grassroots and community groups in and around each of these cities. With these groups, we will develop screenings and workshops that reflect their concerns and ideas and can help catalyse change on a local, tangible level. 

Take One Action is all about what happens next when you leave the cinema. We aim to thoughtfully design bespoke ‘pathways’ for people who attend our festival, meaning they leave our events connected to local ecosystems of change, inspired and resourced to be part of building real utopias where they are. Our plan is to connect global ideas and storytelling to local communities in a way that feels useful, nurturing and can be part of creating a sense of active hope and possibility.

At Take One Action, we are committed to inclusive film screenings and events that build in accessibility from day one – from our sliding scale ticketing system, to screening our films with descriptive subtitles, offering BSL interpretation at our events, and making sure audiences can access support for travel expenses or childcare so everyone can be part of what we do. All are welcome and we’re constantly working to dismantle barriers to accessing and engaging with our events.

"The role of the artist is to make the revolution irresistible" (Toni Cade Bambara)

THIS COSTS MONEY

In order to make sure our programme reaches new audiences in need of a dose of active hope, to enable us to work with oppressed groups across Scotland as equal collaborators, and that our events are genuinely open to everyone, we need budget – and the current arts funding landscape is brutal. We know we are not alone in this. 

By testing a decentralised film programming model that allows people at the sharp end of social and environmental inequalities to set our agenda and plan our events alongside us, we hope we can be part of a movement towards more grassroots and less top-down arts programming. We are committed to sharing our learnings and experiences from next year’s Real Utopias programme with the wider arts and social change communities.

We can only do this if we do this together. We hope that as well as contributing to this campaign, you will become part of the Take One Action community (if you aren’t already). We have year-round screenings and events, all focussed around themes of social and environmental justice, and we’ve shown or are about to show films exploring topics from industrial food systems to fast fashion and toxic masculinity, alongside workshops on protest, holding difficult conversations, and queering ecologies. 

In practical terms your funding will enable us to:

• Create meaningful and impactful collaborations with grassroots organisations, especially those led by oppressed and marginalised groups
• Hold events in venues that are accessible, hospitable and create an atmosphere of welcome that fosters community-building and co-learning
• Pay artists and filmmakers sharing world-changing stories fairly
• Ensure that everyone who wants to join us – as co-producers or event attendees – is able to do so
• Market these events as part of our 2025 festivals in a way that ensures new and diverse audiences are able to attend and contribute.

WHY TAKE ONE ACTION?

Good question. Well, we have a track record in bringing communities together across Scotland to harness the transformative potential of film and storytelling for collective change, since 2008. This is our first ever crowdfund, and it’s necessary to make our work happen, as well as an opportunity to grow our community and build momentum for change through storytelling and co-creation.

In the words of our patron Ken Loach: “Take One Action’s focus on empowering communities to engage with global and environmental issues through great film is unique in the UK. This work is really, really important.”

We support community Film Clubs from Oban to Orkney, as well as hosting year-round screenings and workshops. What people who come along to our events tell us is encouraging and rewarding:

• “I think your films are marvellous: the stories of what some folk do and achieve against the odds are what we need to motivate us to join together to make a kinder society and to save the planet.” (Audience member, Kirkwall)
• “By exposing people to global issues through powerful films, Take One Action is one of those remarkable organisations capable of opening the heart and mind of its audience to environmental and social injustice.” (Audience member, Edinburgh)
• “The action of taking a stand, is a continuous lifelong process of refinement, into which Take One Action’s festivals add impetus and direction, sending us away better informed and with a reinforced sense of commitment, to make whatever actions we do take as relevant and curative as possible.” (Audience member, Inverness)

At a time when it’s hard not to feel dispirited, exhausted, sad and angry, we hope you will join us to work towards tangible change. 

Together, we can create spaces in which another world feels possible, not just in the future, but in the here and now.

Illustrations by Nanni-Paa