PILOT. The Auction. Scenario 4: Great Transition
TREATMENT
In a future shaped by the Great Transition, society has not abandoned markets, institutions or democracy. Instead, it has transformed their purpose. Economic success is no longer measured primarily through ownership, extraction or GDP, but through ecological regeneration, community wellbeing and long-term stewardship. Competition still exists, but it rewards those who can best restore and protect the living systems upon which society depends.
Victor, a wealthy investor in his late sixties, arrives at what he believes will be the most important auction of his career. Having built his fortune by acquiring forests, land and natural resources, he is confident that wealth still determines influence. The event appears entirely familiar: an elegant auction hall, a professional auctioneer and a catalogue of spectacular natural landscapes awaiting bids.
The first lot is Black Valley Forest. As the bidding begins, Victor prepares to outbid everyone. Instead of financial offers, however, the bidders calmly present proposals: native woodland restoration, river restoration, public footpaths, wolf reintroduction, thirty-year soil recovery, outdoor classrooms, youth stewardship programmes, community food forests and local employment. Victor repeatedly increases his monetary offers, convinced he is participating in a conventional auction, while the auctioneer politely records every contribution without distinguishing between money and the other proposals.
As increasingly ambitious restoration plans are offered, Victor becomes bewildered. No one appears interested in his millions. Children, scientists, community cooperatives, educators and ordinary citizens participate alongside business leaders as equals. The competition is genuine, but the criteria have fundamentally changed.
Unable to understand the proceedings, Victor finally asks what the highest bid is. The auctioneer calmly explains that there are no financial bids. The forest is not being sold because it is no longer considered private wealth. It belongs equally to past, present and future generations. The auction exists only to determine who has presented the strongest long-term stewardship proposal.
Evaluation criteria appear on the screen: biodiversity, ecosystem restoration, public access, community wellbeing, youth opportunity and long-term resilience. The winning proposal is selected not because it generates the greatest financial return, but because it delivers the greatest public and ecological benefit over generations.
The film visualises the Great Transition not through futuristic technology, but by quietly transforming one familiar institution. The auction remains recognisable, yet its values have fundamentally changed. Ownership has become stewardship. Wealth has become the health of ecosystems and communities. Success is measured not by what one possesses, but by what one contributes.
Rather than presenting a utopia without conflict, *The Auction* invites audiences to imagine a civilisation that has redefined prosperity itself. It demonstrates how familiar social institutions could evolve to reflect the principles of ecological civilisation envisioned by the Great Transition Initiative and Earth4All: a society where ambition, innovation and competition continue to exist, but are directed towards safeguarding the common inheritance of future generations.
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Minna VäisänenWriter
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Paul HayesWriter
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Bi/etterminds .Producer
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Runtime:1 minute 10 seconds
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Language:English
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Film Color:Color
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First-time Filmmaker:No
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Student Project:No
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Digital Cinema Package:Unavailable
Bi/etterminds Biography
Bi/etterminds is the collaborative practice of Finnish visual artist and director Minna Väisänen and British writer and editor Paul Hayes. Working across comics, animation, photography, and digital media, they create concise visual narratives that explore memory, identity, ageing, grief, technology, bureaucracy, and the quiet absurdities of everyday life.
Their work combines literary storytelling with experimental visual language, transforming observations drawn from ordinary experience into surreal and psychologically charged short films and comics. Rather than offering clear resolutions, Bi/etterminds examines the emotional spaces between people, the systems that shape human behaviour, and the fragile ways individuals construct meaning in contemporary society.
Minna Väisänen directs and animates the films while developing their visual language through photography, illustration, vector graphics, mixed media, and emerging digital tools. Paul Hayes develops the narratives, concepts, and scripts, bringing a literary approach that blends understated humour with philosophical reflection and social observation. Together they have established a distinctive practice in which comics function not merely as illustrations but as original narrative works that frequently evolve into animated films.
Paul Hayes is a British writer, editor, and concept developer whose work examines the contradictions of contemporary life through concise, often understated narratives. His writing explores loneliness, ageing, bureaucracy, social structures, environmental anxiety, and the subtle tensions that shape everyday human relationships.
As the principal writer of Bi/etterminds, Hayes develops stories that combine philosophical observation with dark humour and emotional restraint. His scripts deliberately leave space for visual interpretation, allowing image and silence to carry equal narrative weight alongside dialogue.
Their films have been screened internationally at festivals and exhibitions in Europe, North America, Asia, and the Caribbean, with selections including Lift-Off Sessions, Top Quark Film Festival, Movilfest, Toronto Global Film Festival, AJR Vision de Cine Independiente, TJOV International Short Film Festival, and numerous independent showcases.
Bi/etterminds' work has also been featured in international publications, including interviews in Magpies Magazine and Hechyeomoyeo Art Magazine, where they discussed their collaborative creative process, the relationship between comics and animation, and the role of emerging technologies in contemporary independent filmmaking.
The Auction was inspired by a simple question: what if the greatest transformation of the future was not technological, but moral?
Much of our thinking about sustainability focuses on new inventions, cleaner energy and more efficient systems. The Great Transition Initiative and Earth4All suggest something far more profound: the challenge is to redefine what we value. We were drawn to this idea because it asks us not merely to solve environmental problems, but to imagine a civilisation organised around different principles.
Rather than depicting this through speeches or political debate, we wanted to visualise the transition by quietly transforming one familiar institution. An auction is universally understood. It is a place where the highest bidder acquires ownership. By changing only the meaning of a bid, the film reveals an entirely different society. Competition still exists, but people compete to demonstrate who can best care for a forest rather than who can afford to own it.
Victor enters the auction carrying the assumptions of our present economic system. He believes that money is the ultimate measure of value because that has been true throughout his life. His confusion mirrors our own as the audience gradually discovers that prosperity has been redefined. In this future, biodiversity, public access, education, ecological restoration and community wellbeing have become the true measures of wealth. Ownership has given way to stewardship.
We deliberately avoided portraying a flawless utopia. The film does not suggest that human ambition, competition or institutions disappear. Instead, they are redirected towards protecting the ecological systems that sustain society. The future remains recognisably human, but its priorities have changed.
Visually, we chose restraint. The auction hall could exist today. There are no spectacular technologies or futuristic cities because the most radical change is invisible. It lies in the values that shape everyday decisions and public institutions.
Ultimately, The Auction is an invitation to imagine a society that has learned to think beyond the next financial quarter and towards the next century. If our greatest inheritance is the living world itself, then perhaps the highest privilege is no longer ownership, but earning the trust to care for it on behalf of generations yet to come.
