Commune
“Peace and love are only half the story.”
Synopsis
In 1968, Elsa and Richard Marley founded an alternative-living community, named Black Bear, in the remote Northern California wilderness with the motto "Free Land for Free People." This film tells the story of that intended utopia. Through archival footage and interviews with former residents, director Jonathan Berman explores the problems and realities of communal living and the evolution of a community that endured FBI harassment, cult leadership and more.
Credits
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How many hands made this film
The scale of the collaboration
Principal cast & crew: 17
These are the principals we have on file — the full crew ran to the hundreds. Every film this size was made by far more hands than any credits list ever names.
Why a floor?
This is a minimum, not a total. We only count the credits we’ve captured so far, and coverage is uneven — a blockbuster might show a few hundred names while another of the same size shows a couple dozen. The real crews all ran into the thousands. The number here only grows as full credits are enriched — so we frame it as a floor, never a headcount.
Craft leads on file
Edited by Marisa SimpsonShot by Tamas BojtorScored by Elliott Sharp
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Cast & Crew
17 unique people credited
Top billed cast
Mahaj Seeger
as Self - Black Bear Resident
Peter Coyote
as Self - Black Bear Resident
Cedar Seeger
as Self - Black Bear Resident
Mel Kramer
as Self - Local Resident
Elsa Marley
as Self - Black Bear Resident
Michael Tierra
as Self - Black Bear Resident
Richard Marley
as Self - Black Bear Resident
Larry Bacon
as Self - Public Defender
Hoss Bennett
as Self - Neighbor
Creek Hanauer
as Self - Black Bear Resident
Directors
1Writers
1Producers
1Other crew
6Parents Guide
AI Personalities
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