For such a small group of people we have set ourselves a daunting task, that of challenging the rules that underpin the current world order. Rules that see a tiny minority dictate the way the game is played so they get richer whilst the majority see their living standards under attack, their land stolen from beneath their feet and their environment poisoned. We – the staff at The Rules – really cannot do this on our own. We rely on the wider Rules #community to mount this challenge.

Our recent virtual film festival, “9×9: Nine little films about ##food and #farming”, has shown this community at work. A few months ago a member of the community – filmmaker Jason Taylor – approached us with some films he had made about farming that told a positive story about sustainable farming methods and local resistance to big #agriculture.

Masanobu Fukuoka, author of The One-Straw Revolution on farming

Jason told us he thought the films would fit with some of the work we were doing on agriculture. When we watched these beautiful films we were blown away, as I’m sure you have been if you’ve been following the film festival. (If you want to see more of Jason’s work visit The Source Project website, or show them some love on Facebook).

The films were too good for us just to post the odd one or two to our Facebook page, so we decided to make an event out of it, and the idea of our virtual film festival was born featuring nine of the films over nine days.

We had no idea how it would pan out, but over the nine days the films have been viewed more than 300,000 times. If you weren’t one of those who watched them last week, you can see them now.

We approached people in our networks and asked them to help promote the films. We wanted to reach as wide an audience as possible. Sometimes doing this work it’s easy to spend so much time focusing on the many problems we face that we become negative, so showing these films of hope was a really powerful way to communicate the positive side of the change we are working for.

The following groups worked with us and really helped us reach a wide audience with the films: Other 98%, Gaia Foundation, Youth ki Awaaz, Common Dreams, TruthOut, Global Justice Now, Share the World’s Resources, Occupy.com and The Oakland Institute.

A massive thanks to all of you, you are a key part in our work to bring radical thought to the mainstream.

Several other people in our networks responded by sharing their own films about food and farming with us, which I’d like to share here.

Feedback sent us a #video about a new campaign calling for supermarkets to stop dumping food waste on farmers, a practise that leads to farmers not being paid, and in places like Kenya, being forced into debt to pay for food.

And Compassion in World Farming sent us a video on ‘The Secrets of Food Marketing’?

Perhaps some of you reading this post also have films that you want to share.

This is how the community to bring radical thought to the mainstream is built.

Once again thank you to all who helped spread the films, and to all those who watched and enjoyed.