In 1989, Jim Merkel left his military engineering career, dedicating his life to peacemaking and addressing the climate crisis. By 2015, as a father, he felt an urgent need to act. “I could feel a tsunami barreling towards my son’s future,” Merkel recalls. So, he picked up a camera and began filming his six-year-old son’s world, starting an eight-year project that would take him across the globe.

Saving Walden’s World is the result—an eye-opening journey through societies once targeted by his former arms-dealing work, like India, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. Merkel showcases these regions’ sustainable development solutions, asking why the U.S. considers them adversaries when they are thriving. “I’d seen real, practical solutions,” he says.

The film screens Wednesday, October 9, with two showings at 12:00pm & 6:00 pm at McHenry County College’s Luecht Auditorium. Merkel and Chicagoan and co-producer Bob Maraist will be present for Q&A.

Merkel’s film tour coincided with the Summit of the Future, a high-level UN event where his film screened in NYC. Saving Walden’s Worldhighlights societies that accomplished many of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals decades ahead of the 2030 targets. Retired UN diplomat Saji Thomas of the Kerala Forum on United Nations Impact is partnering with Merkel to next bring the film to Kerala, India.

In Kerala, India, Merkel documented Kudumbashree, a four-million-member women’s organization that empowers women through microfinance. “Women meet weekly, share income-earning ideas, and pool their savings to help one another,” says Merkel. Kerala’s approach to free education, healthcare, and childcare is at the heart of the film’s message: if they can do it, why can’t we?

Now touring by electric vehicle, Merkel brings his film from Maine to Boulder for the Iris Global Health Film Festival, including the stop at MCC.