Jim Merkel and his child, Walden. Merkel created a film that highlights three societies working to make the world a better place. “Saving Walden’s World” is showing in Biddeford and Yarmouth next week. Contributed / Jim Merkel

Wars. Climate change. Economic inequality. Our modern world isn’t short on reasons to despair. In 1989, James “Jim” Merkel was sitting in a bar in Sweden when he witnessed the Exxon Valdez oil spill on TV. He decided he had had enough and wanted to be a more responsible steward of the planet.

“I just realized … like a flash that I was responsible, because I drive the car every day; I flew seven intercontinental flights that year doing business. I was like, ‘you’re the guilty one, Jim,’” said Merkel, who at the time was working for TRW Electronic Products Inc., a subsidiary of the military and civil space systems company TRW Inc.

For Merkel, now an author and filmmaker, it was not his first time feeling like he did ethically questionable work. The company he worked for produced a device used by Oliver North during the Iran-Contra affair. When he told friends and family he was quitting being an engineer, they all assumed it was to go make more money somewhere else. Instead it was to make the planet better for his future child.

Merkel’s film “Saving Walden’s World” is his latest effort to do just that. The documentary will be shown at City Theater in Biddeford at 4 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 11, as part of the Vacationland Film Festival and in Yarmouth at the First Parish Church at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 13. The screening tour, which includes many locations along the coast, will highlight the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

“At each screening we’ve been discussing the importance of one of the 17 SDGs,” wrote Merkel in a follow-up email. In Yarmouth, for example, Merkel will be focusing on Goal 6: clean water and sanitation.

The film, a tribute to his 14-year-old child, Walden (who appears in the film), looks at three “imperfect yet extraordinary societies:” Slovenia, Cuba and Kerala, India. The documentary highlights ways these places are championing sustainability and female empowerment. In Kerala, for example, he focuses on a microfinance program that supports women.

He wants people who watch his film to leave with “a feeling of agency,” he said. “I can’t throw in the towel on my child’s world and just say ‘they’ll figure it out.’”

Merkel began making the film in 2015, when Walden, who uses they/them pronouns, was 6, and has so far earned some acclaim. It won Best Documentary at Five Continents International Film Festival, Official Selection at the 2024 Maine Outdoor Film Festival, and Audience Choice at Puerto Aventuras International Film Festival.

When state Rep. Arthur Bell (D-Yarmouth) first learned about the film, he reached out to Merkel and invited him to have a screening at the First Parish Church. The two haven’t yet met in person, but “I sense that I’m really going to like this guy,” said Bell. Bell said he was motivated to enter politics out of concern for the environment — and today is a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Environment and Natural Resources — so it’s little surprise there’s mutual admiration there.

And in keeping with his commitment to living eco friendly, Merkel has been traveling to his film screenings via sailboat. When he stops in Yarmouth, Merkel plans to use Bell’s mooring.

The day he spoke to the Northern Forecaster, he was in Rockland for a screening and was gearing up to sail down the coast toward Biddeford. “I love sailing and I love not using fossil fuels,” he explained. In addition to only traveling by boat, bike or electric car, Merkel has a homestead in Belfast with his family where he grows much of his own food.

His partner and Walden are sailing with him. Merkel said these days Walden would rather watch an action flick than the documentary their father made and thinks “everything Dad does is cringe,” but Merkel thinks that the overall lifestyle he’s created for Walden has had a positive impact.

Merkel can tell by the way they’re “learning and making choices.”