We The Tiny House People (Documentary): Small Homes, Tiny Flats & Wee Shelters

TV producer and Internet-video personality Kirsten Dirksen invites us on her journey into the tiny homes of people searching for simplicity, self-sufficiency, minimalism and happiness by creating shelter in caves, converted garages, trailers, tool sheds, river boats and former pigeon coops.

-- "This extraordinary recalibration of what it means to live the good life"- TreeHugger
-- "For those who find themselves dumbfounded, perplexed and curious regarding how individuals can make everyday-use of very tiny spaces." - The Blaze
-- "The documentary focuses on the new craze sweeping American -- people living in Tiny Houses." - Weekly World News
-- "The subject is fascinating." - Directors Live

[** Rate it yourself on imdb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2148460/?... ]

Kirsten Dirksen is co-founder of faircompanies.com and a Huffington Post blogger. She has worked for MTV, Oxygen, The Travel Channel and Sundance Channel. Her documentaries include "Searching for Da Vinci's Secret" and "Translating Genocide: Journey to Sudan". "We the Tiny House People" is her first documentary to premiere on youtube.

Documentary runtime: 1:21:47
Release: 2012
Director/producer/writer/shooter/editor: Kirsten Dirksen
Concept & additional shooting/writing: Nicolás Boullosa Guerrero

Features: Jay Shafer (Tumbleweed Tiny House Company), Austin Hay, Jenine Alexander (Forge Ahead Construction), Stephen Marshall (Little House on the Trailer), Suchin Pak (MTV, Hester Street Fair), Graham Hill (TreeHugger, LifeEdited), Felice Cohen, Luke Clark Tyler, Eric Schneider, Michael Chen (Normal Projects), Sarah Dickinson & family, Henri Grevellec, Matthieu de Marien (Fabre/deMarien Architects), Jérémie Buchholtz, Eva Prats (Flores Prats Architects), Christian Schallert, Pascual Alberola, Jorge Cortés (Enproyecto Arquitectura), Johnny Sanphillippo, Heather Wilcoxon

Locations: California (Sonoma County, San Francisco, Sausalito); New York City; Hawaii; France (Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie, Grezille, Puy-Notre-Dame, Bordeaux); Spain (Barcelona, Ibort, Vall de Laguar).

* For distributors/film festivals interested in television/theatrical release, please contact me directly at kirstendirksen [at] faircompanies [dot] com.

Music credits:
Sivia (Title track) http://sivia.bandcamp.com/
Dave Warstler (Healdsburg, NYC intro, French cave home, San Francisco) http://www.davewarstler.com/
My Life is Fireworks (Bordeaux apartment, Barcelona intro) http://www.youtube.com/user/MyLifeIsF...
Kite (Barcelona Christian apartment) http://www.youtube.com/user/pvdbass

More info on faircompanies:
http://faircompanies.com/blogs/view/h...
http://faircompanies.com/videos/view/...
http://faircompanies.com/videos/view/...

• Category

  Film & Animation

[mytimeistoday1]

great video, saw the tree house at the end...would've loved more news on that one.

[kirstendirksen]

It's a treehouse in Extremadura, Spain. You can find the full video here: youtube.com/watch?v=uPnO8rgJIM­g

[wheredidileavemycell]

Jay Shafer is a sell out. He is everything wrong with the current housing institution and is a traitor to the small house movement. He sells tiny houses (albeit beautiful) for ridiculous prices...50k for a small tumbleweed home??? are you effin kidding me? you can buy a house for that price in southern maryland. He is all about selling gimmicky, trendy idea rather than inspiring people to change their lifestyles. makes me sick.

[tinyhouseman]

Check out "This tiny house is freakin' sweet" on You Tube. You can find it by searching This tiny house is freakin' sweet or by going to /tinyhouseman.

[notbre]

...abilities to put them together. Not everyone has that luxury, so they may choose to buy new.

Plus, the company is working on getting RVIA certification for the ready-made homes, which would provide the option of financing for people. Nicolasboullosa is right. T'weed has new staff (not new ownership... The owner has been there since the beginning with Jay) and a renewed vision. Everyone who works there is a believer in making small living as accessible as possible to everyone they can.

[notbre]

a family business in Colorado Springs. Everyone has to get paid, so the cost does get passed down to the T'weed customer. While you may be right about some jumping on the tiny house bandwagon (why fault them for wanting to live smaller, though?) many who choose to go the pre-made route are individuals who are incapable or unwilling to build it themselves for various reasons (disability, time). I have several months over which I can build, so I have the time to find cheap materials, plus the...

[notbre]

Interesting perspective, but I disagree about the "folks who would buy tiny homes from Jay..would probably be the type of people who could probably afford regular size homes." I am intimately familiar with Tumbleweed, have attended several of their workshops, and am planning to build one myself. My build will realistically be priced around 12-15k with used/craiglisted materials, rather than the 45-50k sticker price. While the msrp may seem elevated, T'weed contracts the builds out to...

[Emmelien1994]

I honestly think this is my favorite documentary of all times. So inspiring! Does anyone know any documentaries like this? I've been trying to find some minimalism inspiration but I just can't find any!

[wordsme]

the music doesn't fit the video.

[mysweetharmony]

They probably use a composting toilet.

[scotianbank]

0:52:00 I kinda expected Ezio Audiotre to jump from that tower!!