Maybe cinematic political documentaries are a bit like buses: you wait ages for one and then two come along at once. Released at the end of 2025, Orwell: 2+2=5 (dir. Raoul Peck) and Power Station (dirs. Hilary Powell and Dan Edelstyn) offer strikingly different approaches to thinking about political power and the practical work of building a Good Society.

Peck’s startling Orwell documentary is understandably getting the column inches, using Eric Blair’s writings to draw parallels between the rise of fascism in the 1930s-40s and today. It is a cliché but this film deserves to be seen on a big screen. Mixing archive footage of contemporary authoritarian politics, multiple film clips, beautiful cinematography of Jura (the Scottish island where Orwell wrote 1984) and animation (some controversially generated by AI), it is compelling and visually thrilling. But the overall impression is, inevitably, one of pessimism.

The film ends (spoiler alert!) with a poignant invocation of Winston Smith’s line from 1984, “if there’s hope, it lies in the proles”, as campaigners and victims of oppression stare at the viewer, demanding action. It also powerfully links Orwell’s fatal battle with tuberculosis to the Black Lives Matter slogan, “I can’t breathe”. But the message is counterbalanced by the previous two hours of gloom.

Then there is Power Station. While Orwell looks big budget, here the style is scrappy, intimate, handmade. The filmmakers liken its tone to Withnail & I – “We’ve set up a community power station by mistake!”. But unlike the Orwell film, you leave Power Station energised, smiling – and carrying several vital lessons for campaigners, especially those aligned with Compass’ values. 

Power Station follows two married filmmakers, Hilary Powell and Dan Edelstyn, living with kids and a dog in Hackney. Worn down by the relentless bad news around climate change – the radio is a continual Greek chorus of catastrophe – they decide to turn their misery into positive action.

Their plan is to transform their street into a community-owned “power station”, installing solar panels across rooftops and onto a local school. The obstacles are numerous, especially financial. Their solutions are sometimes brilliant, sometimes barking – rallying neighbours, sleeping on their roof to raise funds and even attempting to reach the Christmas number one.

It would not do to give away the ending (no spoiler alert!), but the film offers several concrete lessons about the project of democratic renewal. Crucially, their film demonstrates an insight that researchers have long argued: awareness alone rarely drives change. Action does. 

Neuroscientist Kris De Meyer, director of UCL’s Climate Action Unit, says that creating “concern” or “awareness” about an issue can be ineffective and even counterproductive. Speaking at London Climate Week, he argued that “We need to focus on action because in real life, actions drive beliefs far more often than beliefs drive action.” In Power Station, Powell and Edelstyn do not lecture their neighbours about 1.5°C or Net Zero or try to convince climate deniers. Instead, they invite them to be members of a joint enterprise, putting up panels and helping them organise media stunts. Agency emerges through participation – the more people do, the more they believe they can do.

Another of De Meyer’s insights reinforces this focus on doing – try to create stories and narratives that centre on agency. “Most agency is social: people need to see others solving problems… Stories of action build that sense of agency, and action inspires more actions.” Power Station understands this instinctively. It replaces the familiar script of climate catastrophe with a different kind of narrative – ordinary people creating solutions together. 

The film also resonates with Eric Klinenberg’s work on “social infrastructure”. Klinenberg argues that thriving democracies depend on physical spaces – libraries, parks, community centres – that create opportunities for people to connect. The Hackney Power Station may not look like “social infrastructure” in the conventional sense, but it functions exactly as Klinenberg describes. The street becomes a civic asset that encourages collaboration. Its purpose is to generate renewable energy – but the deeper power is the solidarity produced when neighbours act together. In this sense, Power Station is a small yet potent blueprint for the Good Society.

These are difficult political times. But when attempting to create progressive change, we should not simply restate why there is a problem (though there are plenty). We should create opportunities for shared endeavours. As Orwell nearly wrote, if there’s hope, it lies in the doers.

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