Three ways to watch JOIN OR DIE and spread its civic message 🎳
An update on our documentary on community in America
Hello friends,
For the past seven years, my sister Rebecca Davis and I have been working on a film — Join or Die — about community in America, the social isolation crisis, and Robert Putnam’s legendary Bowling Alone research. To learn more, our website is here and our trailer is below:
After premiering at SXSW last year, we launched our 2024 Join Up! Tour, in which we invited any community organization, congregation, campus, conference, or company to use the film as a tool to bring people together to talk about civic rejuvenation. So far, over 2500 groups (and counting!) have requested a screening—and hundreds of screening events have already been hosted.Â
We were excited to screen the film at big, national institutions—from Congress and the Carnegie Library to dozens of film festivals and university campuses—but we have been even more excited to see the film shown by small, neighborhood groups across the country. Watching hundreds of community screening events pop up at public libraries, synagogues, Rotary clubs, Odd Fellows lodges, church basements, community theaters, co-working spaces, and crowded living rooms packed tight with neighbors has been the highlight of our film’s journey.
And this is just the beginning! The 2024 election is going to stress America’s social fabric, likely intensifying various civic ills: polarization, screen addiction, institutional alienation, social distrust, and distraction from local community problem-solving. That is why we are continuing our Join Up! Tour into 2025, so that Join or Die can continue to provide urgent, critical counter-programming: a message that the fate of our democracy depends on our civic engagement with our neighbors and local communities.Â
This week, I wanted to pass along 3 ways you can see the film and help spread its civic message:
1. See Join or Die in theaters or at a public community screening. Join or Die is still screening in theaters across the country, as well as at dozens of public community screening events. Visit JoinOrDieFilm.com/#see to find out if Join or Die is showing near you.
2. If no screenings are happening nearby, you can now — for the next 30 days — see Join or Die at home through Theatrical Video on Demand. Our hope remains that, in the spirit of the film’s message, most viewers find a way to see the film together, in community. However, we have decided to create this one-month window for home rentals for two reasons: First, so more people interested in hosting community screening events can see the film for the first time as they consider and plan their event; and second, so we can continue our Join Up! Tour into next year (proceeds from home rentals will go towards us continuing the film’s community tour into 2025). We have partnered with the platform Gathr for this release and you can head over to Rent.JoinOrDieFilm.com to rent and watch today!
3. Most importantly, we hope you will consider hosting a community screening. We see Join or Die as a community organizing tool—and have been delighted by how local leaders around the country have used it to catalyze conversations about rejuvenating civic life in their institutions and communities. Whether you have already hosted a screening and want to host another one, reached out to us about hosting a screening but have not yet scheduled it, or are just thinking about hosting a screening for the first time, now is a great time to get in touch! To get the process started, fill out the form at JoinOrDieFilm.com/#host or email DelevanStreetFilms@gmail.com.Â
Thank you for all your encouragement, support, and partnership over the past years as we have worked to get this story and message out into the world. Â
Pete
P.S. Feel free to forward along this email to your community and share our announcement posts on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.