The Elements of Mutual Aid is an exciting new docuseries project that received a Jen Angel Anarchist Media Grant from Agency and the Institute for Anarchist Studies in 2023. With the project recently having wrapped up the production stage, we were excited to connect with co-directors, Payton and Leah, to learn more about their inspiration, process, and plans for the upcoming release in 2026. Make sure to follow their work for updates on online availability and screenings in your area – website, instagram, kolektiva, kolektiva.media, youtube.
Title image: Screen cap of animation by Maria Medem featured in The Elements of Mutual Aid docuseries.
Agency: What inspired you to produce a 4-part docuseries about mutual aid, and what has the production process looked like?
Elements: The earliest ideas for the film began in 2018 when we facilitated the cross-country Mutual Aid Disaster Relief workshop tour. We got to travel with a group of comrades doing popular education and learning about community disaster responses. This experience deepened our understanding of mutual aid and revealed a lack of accessible multimedia resources on the topic.
With Leah’s journalism background and Payton’s experience in movement media, we felt compelled to create a project that would push the conversation about mutual aid to a deeper level. After considering a single film or several shorts, we decided on a four-part series. This format allowed us to explore different aspects of mutual aid through feature-length episodes, with the natural elements being a powerful container to help translate big themes.
We initially planned to start shooting in 2020, but the pandemic changed our plans. We stayed home, worked in our local mutual aid network, and refined the film’s concept. In 2022, we hit the road in our camper van and wrapped up shooting this year. Along the way, we’ve taken on an animator, a composer, an impact producer, and 18 groups “in association” with the film—including Agency!
Each chapter features 3-4 unique groups and a cast of individual narrators who tie everything together. We connected with most groups through personal relationships or social media, while others came by recommendation. Unfortunately, we couldn’t interview everyone we wanted, and some groups had to drop out. There are gaps in the narrative, as we couldn’t depict every type of mutual aid project from every perspective. However, as a two-person crew, we tried to include as many unique voices as possible.
Agency: You’ve mentioned filming in the “so-called United States,” Tijuana, and Puerto Rico, and even converting a van to contribute personal money to the project. How did this immersive lifestyle impact your understanding of mutual aid, and did it open doors to deeper connections with the communities you profiled?
Elements: It’s been important to us throughout this process to live our values as anarchists and not let film making distort the way we engage with people and their communities. Wherever we could, we spent time getting to know groups by breaking bread or getting our hands dirty alongside them before taking the cameras out. We usually spoke with groups for weeks or months ahead of shooting and tried to make sure that the groups themselves were also living in the values and not just defaulting to the most powerful voices.
When it was time to film, trust was everything. We didn’t want to make people feel like “subjects.” It’s been a big learning process and one that’s opened up some beautiful relationships that will long outlast this project. We’re not just making a film—we’re building family in the struggle.
Agency: Each episode of Elements of Mutual Aid is themed around one of the four elements—fire, earth, water, and air. How do these elements reflect the focus of each episode? What do you hope viewers will take away from each elemental theme?
Elements: The film opens with Fire where we talk about the history and context of the term. We describe its roots in Black and Indigenous communities, but also as a tactic that police and fascists use, too. We’re not the only people that mobilize the term, and it’s important to understand what we mean when we talk about it as anti-authoritarians. We use the phrase “insurrectionary mutual aid” to explicitly describe what we’re talking about—as the Panthers said, “survival pending revolution.”
Earth showcases how people are building infrastructure projects and takes a look at how communities can scale up across large regions to meet each other’s needs. Water goes deep into the wellspring of healing and care work that is required in order to achieve liberation. And Air wraps everything up by offering different perspectives on decision-making, formality, and permanence.
We believe the elements will help viewers connect with these ideas on a more intimate and spiritual level. After watching the full series, we hope that people feel more empowered to take part in mutual aid where they live in ways that are antagonistic toward the state—and not limited in their imagination to build toward liberation.
Agency: Were there specific instances during filming where the resilience or ingenuity of a mutual aid effort offered a particularly powerful counter-narrative?
Elements: In Los Angeles, a group called Reclaiming Our Homes has been locked in a fierce battle against the government and housing authorities since 2020. Inspired by Moms For Housing in Oakland, they used the model of occupying vacant homes to not only secure housing, but make a larger political condemnation of the real estate industry. The Reclaimers coordinated and seized 13 homes that had been sitting empty for decades after the California Transit Authority seized them in a failed highway expansion project. Most of the Reclaimers are elders and single mothers. With their extensive network, they reconnected water lines, set up generators, made repairs, furnished the houses, and organized rotating cop watches to keep them safe. They’ve been supported by dozens of community groups, including the El Sereno Community Land Trust, which has provided a roadmap for cooperative land stewardship and housing as a human right.
We followed them for a couple of weeks and captured powerful testimonies and moments of bravery. One Reclaimer, Benito Flores, tragically passed this year while defending his home. He was issued an eviction order and chose to stand his ground by erecting a tree sit on his property, from which he fell and died. Benito was killed by the callousness of the state, and his fire lives on in us as we continue his fight for dignity.
Agency: How do you think mutual aid can play a role in challenging the growing threats posed by authoritarian states that we are seeing in many parts of the world?
Elements: All states are authoritarian. Some have more power to use violence, but all nation-states are designed to have a monopoly of power to secure their borders, take natural resources, establish rule of law, and force the working class to keep everything afloat. Liberatory mutual aid is the opposite of the state mentality. Where the state tries to create a centralized power above, our understanding of mutual aid leads us to the conclusion that all states must be abolished and replaced by real people power—with decentralized networks of collective governance.
Mutual aid isn’t just about handing out food, medicine, or clothes to “those less fortunate.” It’s about building dual power—survival and community defense on our own terms as we fight to abolish the state. If we can learn to distribute resources at larger scales in ways that don’t rely on coercive labor relationships, are accessible, and decolonial, we can follow in the footsteps of others who have broken from the state like our fighting comrades in Rojava, Chiapas, and elsewhere.
Agency: Elements of Mutual Aid received a Jen Angel Anarchist Media Grant in 2023. How important have grassroots fundraising efforts been for this project, and what would you recommend to others looking to fund radical media projects?
Elements: We did! And we’re very grateful to be connected to Jen’s legacy and spirit. Grassroots fundraising is the only way this docuseries has been possible. The Jen Angel Grant is the only one we’ve ever been awarded since our material and distribution model are too extreme for most granters, which makes this grant all the more precious. Besides the grant, we’ve mostly relied on t-shirt sales and our relationships worldwide to make this possible. We reached out to people we knew, and people we’re inspired by, to establish our list of “in association” partners. We invited each partner to join us in creating this film by contributing things like promo, feedback, merch, connections, or cash. Having a cast of powerful allies who each contribute a little makes the process a lot more powerful.
We also took the time to bust our asses and hustled to self finance much of our work. We’d recommend anyone interested in doing a project like this to not just expect that money will come because you’re on the righteous path, but to get creative and hustle to make it happen—even if that means taking a less ambitious approach to the work. Limitations can actually lead to more creative solutions.
Agency: What are your plans for distributing and screening the docuseries? How can people get involved?
Elements: From the jump, we always agreed that the film would never be sold, we’d never get it trapped in the festival circuit, and we’d never stream it on a capitalist platform. There’s a growing number of awesome streaming sites that share some of our values like Cinema Politica, MeansTV, New Day Films, and Waterbear. But, we’ve ultimately decided to just throw it up on YouTube.
That decision ended up giving us a lot more freedom since we’re not held to the same production standards regarding “fair use” of content. News clips for instance will run upwards of $500 a piece, which we obviously could not afford. So, when we were planning to stream it, we were severely limited by the content we could legally rip from across the internet. Since deciding to demonetize it on YouTube, we’re cutting footage from all over with far less concern. As a backup, we’ll also host it on platforms like PeerTube, Archive.org, and PirateBay with less fear of it being deplatformed. Our goal is for the film to be available for free as fast and accessibly as possible.
Besides digital distribution, we’ll also be touring throughout 2026 taking the film back to many of the places it was shot in and a handful of other communities excited to see it. We’re excited to host events where people can talk and engage with these ideas, and sharpen our collective understanding. We need support with booking and tour management as well as social media. If you feel excited to help us make a powerful impact with the film, please send us an email.
Agency: Is there anything else that you would like to share?
Elements: We keep joking that we’re gonna get a bunch of haters after release because the film doesn’t speak on certain subjects or platform certain expert opinions. But, we’re very confident in what we’ve produced and agree that it is not anywhere near as comprehensive as the moment demands. But, a single film couldn’t possibly be. So, we encourage everyone with an idea and a spirit of curiosity to keep pushing the conversation forward with us. We desperately need more long-form media, like Sub.Media’s InterRebellium series, that examines our situation and maps out pathways forward.
Building Family in the Struggle: An Interview with The Elements of Mutual Aid
The Elements of Mutual Aid is an exciting new docuseries project that received a Jen Angel Anarchist Media Grant from Agency and the Institute for Anarchist Studies in 2023. With the project recently having wrapped up the production stage, we were excited to connect with co-directors, Payton and Leah, to learn more about their inspiration, process, and plans for the upcoming release in 2026. Make sure to follow their work for updates on online availability and screenings in your area – website, instagram, kolektiva, kolektiva.media, youtube.
Title image: Screen cap of animation by Maria Medem featured in The Elements of Mutual Aid docuseries.
Agency: What inspired you to produce a 4-part docuseries about mutual aid, and what has the production process looked like?
Elements: The earliest ideas for the film began in 2018 when we facilitated the cross-country Mutual Aid Disaster Relief workshop tour. We got to travel with a group of comrades doing popular education and learning about community disaster responses. This experience deepened our understanding of mutual aid and revealed a lack of accessible multimedia resources on the topic.
With Leah’s journalism background and Payton’s experience in movement media, we felt compelled to create a project that would push the conversation about mutual aid to a deeper level. After considering a single film or several shorts, we decided on a four-part series. This format allowed us to explore different aspects of mutual aid through feature-length episodes, with the natural elements being a powerful container to help translate big themes.
We initially planned to start shooting in 2020, but the pandemic changed our plans. We stayed home, worked in our local mutual aid network, and refined the film’s concept. In 2022, we hit the road in our camper van and wrapped up shooting this year. Along the way, we’ve taken on an animator, a composer, an impact producer, and 18 groups “in association” with the film—including Agency!
Each chapter features 3-4 unique groups and a cast of individual narrators who tie everything together. We connected with most groups through personal relationships or social media, while others came by recommendation. Unfortunately, we couldn’t interview everyone we wanted, and some groups had to drop out. There are gaps in the narrative, as we couldn’t depict every type of mutual aid project from every perspective. However, as a two-person crew, we tried to include as many unique voices as possible.
Agency: You’ve mentioned filming in the “so-called United States,” Tijuana, and Puerto Rico, and even converting a van to contribute personal money to the project. How did this immersive lifestyle impact your understanding of mutual aid, and did it open doors to deeper connections with the communities you profiled?
Elements: It’s been important to us throughout this process to live our values as anarchists and not let film making distort the way we engage with people and their communities. Wherever we could, we spent time getting to know groups by breaking bread or getting our hands dirty alongside them before taking the cameras out. We usually spoke with groups for weeks or months ahead of shooting and tried to make sure that the groups themselves were also living in the values and not just defaulting to the most powerful voices.
When it was time to film, trust was everything. We didn’t want to make people feel like “subjects.” It’s been a big learning process and one that’s opened up some beautiful relationships that will long outlast this project. We’re not just making a film—we’re building family in the struggle.
Agency: Each episode of Elements of Mutual Aid is themed around one of the four elements—fire, earth, water, and air. How do these elements reflect the focus of each episode? What do you hope viewers will take away from each elemental theme?
Elements: The film opens with Fire where we talk about the history and context of the term. We describe its roots in Black and Indigenous communities, but also as a tactic that police and fascists use, too. We’re not the only people that mobilize the term, and it’s important to understand what we mean when we talk about it as anti-authoritarians. We use the phrase “insurrectionary mutual aid” to explicitly describe what we’re talking about—as the Panthers said, “survival pending revolution.”
Earth showcases how people are building infrastructure projects and takes a look at how communities can scale up across large regions to meet each other’s needs. Water goes deep into the wellspring of healing and care work that is required in order to achieve liberation. And Air wraps everything up by offering different perspectives on decision-making, formality, and permanence.
We believe the elements will help viewers connect with these ideas on a more intimate and spiritual level. After watching the full series, we hope that people feel more empowered to take part in mutual aid where they live in ways that are antagonistic toward the state—and not limited in their imagination to build toward liberation.
Agency: Were there specific instances during filming where the resilience or ingenuity of a mutual aid effort offered a particularly powerful counter-narrative?
Elements: In Los Angeles, a group called Reclaiming Our Homes has been locked in a fierce battle against the government and housing authorities since 2020. Inspired by Moms For Housing in Oakland, they used the model of occupying vacant homes to not only secure housing, but make a larger political condemnation of the real estate industry. The Reclaimers coordinated and seized 13 homes that had been sitting empty for decades after the California Transit Authority seized them in a failed highway expansion project. Most of the Reclaimers are elders and single mothers. With their extensive network, they reconnected water lines, set up generators, made repairs, furnished the houses, and organized rotating cop watches to keep them safe. They’ve been supported by dozens of community groups, including the El Sereno Community Land Trust, which has provided a roadmap for cooperative land stewardship and housing as a human right.
We followed them for a couple of weeks and captured powerful testimonies and moments of bravery. One Reclaimer, Benito Flores, tragically passed this year while defending his home. He was issued an eviction order and chose to stand his ground by erecting a tree sit on his property, from which he fell and died. Benito was killed by the callousness of the state, and his fire lives on in us as we continue his fight for dignity.
Agency: How do you think mutual aid can play a role in challenging the growing threats posed by authoritarian states that we are seeing in many parts of the world?
Elements: All states are authoritarian. Some have more power to use violence, but all nation-states are designed to have a monopoly of power to secure their borders, take natural resources, establish rule of law, and force the working class to keep everything afloat. Liberatory mutual aid is the opposite of the state mentality. Where the state tries to create a centralized power above, our understanding of mutual aid leads us to the conclusion that all states must be abolished and replaced by real people power—with decentralized networks of collective governance.
Mutual aid isn’t just about handing out food, medicine, or clothes to “those less fortunate.” It’s about building dual power—survival and community defense on our own terms as we fight to abolish the state. If we can learn to distribute resources at larger scales in ways that don’t rely on coercive labor relationships, are accessible, and decolonial, we can follow in the footsteps of others who have broken from the state like our fighting comrades in Rojava, Chiapas, and elsewhere.
Agency: Elements of Mutual Aid received a Jen Angel Anarchist Media Grant in 2023. How important have grassroots fundraising efforts been for this project, and what would you recommend to others looking to fund radical media projects?
Elements: We did! And we’re very grateful to be connected to Jen’s legacy and spirit. Grassroots fundraising is the only way this docuseries has been possible. The Jen Angel Grant is the only one we’ve ever been awarded since our material and distribution model are too extreme for most granters, which makes this grant all the more precious. Besides the grant, we’ve mostly relied on t-shirt sales and our relationships worldwide to make this possible. We reached out to people we knew, and people we’re inspired by, to establish our list of “in association” partners. We invited each partner to join us in creating this film by contributing things like promo, feedback, merch, connections, or cash. Having a cast of powerful allies who each contribute a little makes the process a lot more powerful.
We also took the time to bust our asses and hustled to self finance much of our work. We’d recommend anyone interested in doing a project like this to not just expect that money will come because you’re on the righteous path, but to get creative and hustle to make it happen—even if that means taking a less ambitious approach to the work. Limitations can actually lead to more creative solutions.
Agency: What are your plans for distributing and screening the docuseries? How can people get involved?
Elements: From the jump, we always agreed that the film would never be sold, we’d never get it trapped in the festival circuit, and we’d never stream it on a capitalist platform. There’s a growing number of awesome streaming sites that share some of our values like Cinema Politica, MeansTV, New Day Films, and Waterbear. But, we’ve ultimately decided to just throw it up on YouTube.
That decision ended up giving us a lot more freedom since we’re not held to the same production standards regarding “fair use” of content. News clips for instance will run upwards of $500 a piece, which we obviously could not afford. So, when we were planning to stream it, we were severely limited by the content we could legally rip from across the internet. Since deciding to demonetize it on YouTube, we’re cutting footage from all over with far less concern. As a backup, we’ll also host it on platforms like PeerTube, Archive.org, and PirateBay with less fear of it being deplatformed. Our goal is for the film to be available for free as fast and accessibly as possible.
Besides digital distribution, we’ll also be touring throughout 2026 taking the film back to many of the places it was shot in and a handful of other communities excited to see it. We’re excited to host events where people can talk and engage with these ideas, and sharpen our collective understanding. We need support with booking and tour management as well as social media. If you feel excited to help us make a powerful impact with the film, please send us an email.
Agency: Is there anything else that you would like to share?
Elements: We keep joking that we’re gonna get a bunch of haters after release because the film doesn’t speak on certain subjects or platform certain expert opinions. But, we’re very confident in what we’ve produced and agree that it is not anywhere near as comprehensive as the moment demands. But, a single film couldn’t possibly be. So, we encourage everyone with an idea and a spirit of curiosity to keep pushing the conversation forward with us. We desperately need more long-form media, like Sub.Media’s InterRebellium series, that examines our situation and maps out pathways forward.
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