My name is Mauri. I come from Helsinki.
For me everything started when I saw Zeitgeist Addendum online and
the same evening I went to the global forum.
I was surprised to see that in Finland there were other people who had seen it
so I thought: should we start doing something?
Then I discussed for a while in the forum until there was enough people for a meeting.
We met and decided to start a chapter in Finland.
Yeah, we agreed on the global forum to have a meeting
and I remember how we finally met
on the railway station and walked together to
a restaurant to have something to eat.
In the beginning we glared at each other for an hour or so, clearly thinking what kind of
people these other folks are, that are they completely sane or something
and I guess we decided that we need a website and our own discussion forum
and that we need to organize something for the first Z-day.
We managed to organize an Addendum screening in a movie theatre.
What people have probably liked the most,
of what we have done here in Finland,
are the kind of real-life happenings.
One example was when we went to the Kamppi mall and
organized a "Public Freeze" where everyone stood still at the same time
for exactly five minutes and in the end
we opened our palms and dropped huge amounts of five-cent coins on the floor
that bounced and tinkled on the floor while someone from the upper floor threw a load of fake ten-euro notes
that had www.zeitgeist.fi written on them.
Afterwards people were super excited and said
"Yeah, more of this kind of action"
"just send me a message and I'll be there!"
In my opinion these have been the best actions we've done in the Finnish Zeitgeist movement
this kind of small real-life stunts.
Apart from those we've had national meetings where we've had
a good amount of participants.
I had just returned to Finland from a trip in Asia
where I had shot with a tiny camera
how a buffalo takes a shit and other witty material
and I realized how nice it was to edit it together.
Since I still had the camera
I thought I really need to shoot and edit something.
We were just in a Zeitgeist meeting and I saw how
the young guns spoke with great conviction:
"let's make this world a better place" while the comments from outside
the movement were always that these people are some freaks and conspiracy theorists
socialists, communists
so I was pissed off and thinking
if only you'd see their faces and hear what they have to say
so the trolling in internet would stop immediately.
In the beginning our vision was just to have Henkka in front of camera to tell about
The Zeitgeist Movement, coupled with Yrjö Kallinen videos...
[he makes a mistake and the shot is re-done]
...
Originally the idea was just that
we'll shoot Henkka speaking and
color it with Yrjö Kallinen material
and maybe some nice music and stuff.
We had no idea of making a full-length film.
Then we gathered a core group of people
and suddenly the whole project started to inflate,
so many people to interview, that we had to prioritize
that we just can't take on such a massive production
because none of us had ever done a documentary film
but we didn't let it slow us down.
A huge inspiration for this film
at least for me personally
was the fact that I found out about Yrjö Kallinen
a man who used to live
long ago before me
and how he so succintly discussed
exactly the same topics that The Zeitgeist Movement deals with.
It was a kind of call to action, that
yes, even in Finland these matters have been touched upon, and
now it's up to our generation to bring up the same topics.
In the beginning we were like "I wonder if we could ask someone to be interviewed in our film?"
and I was like "I don't know if anyone would be willing".
But then we just started putting names on paper
and we noted down some ten names in a day
and we just started calling them and sending e-mails
probing for interest.
To our surprise pretty much everyone agreed
and wanted to be interviewed.
Apparently it showed
that we are genuinely trying to do something good
and we are not just adhering to some ideology: "buy this and it's a solution to everything"
but instead: young people are trying their best
to bring out some light at the end of the tunnel.
So, the question was
"well, what do we need?"
and I was there with my four-hundred-euro camera.
I thought I have to have a better camera so I bought one.
Suddenly Vesa comes along
with his professional equipment and know-how
and whatever we needed it
just appeared as if from out of the blue,
almost like ordered.
- Whatever it was we needed
human resources, help in something,
money, professional knowledge...
"The Spirit of the Times" became the name
it wasn't really decided at all
it was just that we needed something
I had come up with a home-made trailer
and we had no idea what the film would be
but we thought "it needs to have a name".
So then, of course, I was mulling over "Zeitgeist"
"Yes, Spirit of the Times, that's good"
"People will get this."
We really had no money
to make the film.
Nor we had money to spread out
huge posters everywhere
advertising an upcoming film
so we had one guy from The Zeitgeist Movement who
came up with an ingenious strategy to be implemented in Facebook:
let's create a group that tells
the name of the film
and ask people to invite all their friends in the group.
Just because we had no money for advertising, yet
we felt that the content is important.
What did we get...
I remember we started the group in the evening,
and next morning there were 20 000 invited people in it.
I don't even know how many tens or hundreds of thousands it finally achieved
but because of this the film was seen by some
40.000 people during the first day
which totally caught us all unawares.
So far media has not taken interest in the topic.
I've approached some reporters just for the kicks
and mentioned that
"Hey, this is potentially the most-viewed Finnish documentary film in history"
"so, I was thinking, would you like to write about it?"
They've been pretty positive about it.
They just haven't been aware that something like this has been done
and then they've wanted to cover it.
It was mostly the Zeitgeist folks who
kind of promoted the film
and knew that it's in the works.
They encouraged and helped a lot.
Without the Zeitgeist network this film would have never been made.
Pretty much anything we needed we would just ask from the email list
or Facebook or somewhere
and said we needed help
asking who'd know this and that
and exactly because of this Zeitgeist network
we found the right people to help.
What has been the most important factor in The Zeitgeist Movement
are indeed the people
who have the same basis and understanding of the current society,
and drive, a definite drive, to do something.
I've gained a lot of good friends
from The Zeitgeist Movement.
Whatever I wish to do in the future
to make this world a better place
and whatever projects I might want to take part in
I know that the network from
The Zeitgeist Movement is still there
and from there I will find excited help
if I have anything reasonable to do.
Now I've personally wanted to focus more on
this Occupy Movement.
It feels like immediate action,
not mere theorizing,
mulling over theories and discussing
common themes that are not obvious to everyone.
This is at least something practical to do.
What's going on in the world is a very strong process of change.
Above all, it's a process.
We don't know where it leads,
what will we have after that,
will there be the next character of authority,
perhaps we learned nothing in our day and age
and we'll need some masculine character to save us once again?
But the process is running
and we can all be part of it,
share with others what we've learned
regarding this life and about us humans.
I'm sure that as long as we cooperate with one another
we will reach a future worth living in.
The biggest challenge from moving away
from this current state-of-mind and system
apart from the solutions from the authority
- see, we can be given solutions -
The largest obstacle to our development is of course
this certain dream state in which we are living in.
The authority tells us something -
- in some school some great person teaches us -
- and we start repeating it as a truth.
Then we repeat it over and over again
and view the world, demanding:
"Give me proof that what I'm repeating is true".
Like that we feign ourselves and make believe
that the dream state is real.
People need some personal experience,
for instance something that shatters their world view,
to see that what you've taken for granted is now, for the first time
nothing but an illusion.
It might be, for instance, a close encounter with death
- your own or someone close to you -
that awakens the basic questions of life:
"Who am I?"
"What is my relationship to others?"
"What is my relationship with this planet?"
Never stop dreaming!