Hi, my name is Adarsha Benjamin and I am making a documentary called HOW WE LIVE.

HOW WE LIVE is a documentary

about the history of one of our primary needs for survival

shelter.

The film will cover the history of housing markets, homelessness, land ownership versus stewardship, urban development and the age of gentrification,

how it all started and how we got to where we are and where we are headed

Interwoven with beautiful cinematic footage as I travel to various intentional communities, eco-villages and co-housing communities across the globe to address how we live and how we can live differently.

What can we learn from communities who have come and gone, and what can we learn from those who are flourishing How can we change public policy to make housing for all, not for some?

How can we incorporate sustainable living into urban dwellings?

Is the Search for Utopia, real or imagined? Can it exist? Is it already?

The journey of this film will aim to discover, uncover and educate the many shades of HOW WE LIVE.

HOW IT STARTED

I’m sitting here on the PCH. I’m looking at the lines of empty multi-million dollar homes. I drive downtown, I’m looking at the lines of tents. Under every freeway underpass, makeshift shelters and forgotten citizens.

I’ve been a Los Angeles resident for almost two decades.

Everywhere you look you hear about a housing crisis, a homeless crisis, a wealth crisis, a mental health crisis, an environmental crisis. Are we all just living in crisis?

How did we get here? How do we get out of here?

How can we live differently, who already is & what can we learn from them? These are the questions I am asking, and the answers I am seeking.

ABOUT ME

I was born into a well-known spiritual community of people who were all trying to live outside of the box. Led by the notorious Guru, Osho. Otherwise known as, Wild Wild Country.

I lived in 6 cities before the age of 5 and grew up between Brooklyn and the Pacific Northwest between various forms of conventional and unconventional living environments.

I spent my early 20s immersed in the DIY scene all across the country photographing and making short films with musicians and artists who were attempting to navigate life and survival in the ever gentrifying cities we had all grown up in. I founded and was director of a gallery in the up-and-coming arts district of Downtown LA, where community-centered events were my priority.

It was after doing a residency at a Buddhist monastery that my eyes were opened to what harmonious living can be and how my lifelong quest had been a search for this. This is when it dawned on me. This has been my life’s research. This is what I have to do. To make a film about how we live, what works, what doesn’t and how we can live differently, more sustainably and in harmony.

THANK YOU.