Community Acupuncture Documentary Film Screening Report

On January 29th, Sarana Community Acupuncture (a clinic that I co-own and where I work) and Transition Albany co-hosted a Bay Area premier screening of Community Acupuncture: the Calmest Revolution Ever Staged, a new documentary by award-winning filmmaker Brian Lindstrom. Lindstrom is best known for his cinema-verite documentary, Finding Normal, which chronicles the lives of three people in recovery from chemical dependency.

Community Acupuncture: the Calmest Revolution Ever Staged is the story of how a small group of loud-mouthed, over-educated, under-employed activists and a massive group of ordinary, average-income people revolutionized healthcare services by using large empty rooms, old recliner chairs and two-cent needles. This short but poignant film tells the story of how Community acupuncture is changing the lives of people with limited finances. It follows six diverse community acupuncture patients and shows the impact of affordable acupuncture on their lives and communities.

WHAT IS IT?

Community acupuncture is a social justice movement that provides affordable and accessible acupuncture to people of ordinary incomes and creates sustainable living wage jobs for acupuncture practitioners while building community. In 2002, two Portland acupuncturists, Skip Van Meter and Lisa Rohleder, opened Working Class Acupuncture (WCA) with the intention of making acupuncture affordable and accessible. They wanted to treat their friends and neighbors, so they redesigned the conventional acupuncture business model, treating patients in a quiet group setting in used recliners, and charging a sliding scale of $15-35 per treatment.

Today, Working Class Acupuncture has three locations and is the busiest acupuncture practice in Oregon. Additionally, over 200 community acupuncture clinics across North America have replicated WCA's practice model and offer affordable care to their communities. Most recently People's Organization of Community Acupuncture (POCA), a multi-stakeholder cooperative, was founded by the leaders of community acupuncture movement with the mission to create a stable and sustainable economic foundation for the delivery of affordable acupuncture, and the broad vision to build social capital via creating jobs and providing needed services in an affordable manner.

THE SCREENING

It was a rainy Sunday afternoon, popcorn and other refreshments were on hand, and about 25-30 people gathered in the Edith Stone room of the Albany Library to view the 35-minute film, which was followed by a Q&A session led by me and my business partner, Pam Chang, LAc.

The film inspired lots of interesting questions from the audience ranging from how acupuncture works, what it can help, where are there community clinics in other parts of the country and other towns in the Bay Area, what is this co-op we are creating, etc. It also inspired some beautiful comments and testimonies about the benefits of consistent and affordable acupuncture care.

I am just starting out as a blogger here on Albany Patch and I hope to answer some of the above questions and to provide other helpful information to folks in future posts. In the meantime, the good news is that Community Acupuncture: the Calmest Revolution Ever Staged is available for viewing online. So please check out the film, share it with your friends and let me know if you have any questions!

Wishing everyone good health!