Sonoma filmmaker Carolyn Scott set out in 2023 to make a five-minute short about community members waging a local battle. The project evolved into a 25-minute documentary that has been recognized at film festivals around the world.
Small Is Beautiful tells the story of Sonoma Valley residents’ opposition to the proposed redevelopment of the 200-acre Sonoma Developmental Center campus near Glen Ellen. Since its initial release in early 2024, the film has received the Award of Merit at the 2024 Accolade Global Film Competition in La Jolla, California; competed for top honors in Environmental Awareness at the 2025 Future World Film Festival in Portugal in June; and been nominated for Best Short Documentary at the 2025 Septimius Awards in Amsterdam in September.
It’s also been selected for other film festivals in Sacramento, Colorado, and Florida. Clearly, Small Is Beautiful, about a proposed high-density, upscale housing and hotel development in a quiet and ecologically sensitive nook of the Valley of the Moon, resonates with viewers well beyond its home turf. Scott, who has produced numerous short films on environmental topics over the last two decades, said she had no idea when she took on the project — pro bono, as with all her work — that it would lead where it has. “Films have a mind of their own; they just keep moving, and developing, like any artwork,” she says. “And now it’s all over the planet.”
Scott believes Small Is Beautiful’s seemingly boundless appeal lies in its central theme: self-determination for local communities facing external mandates. The Sonoma Developmental Center plan is driven by California’s requirements for affordable housing, though just 13% of the currently proposed 930 residences will be designated affordable.
“I think this problem is universal,” Scott says. “You have development all over the world that has nothing to do with housing local communities who are on the land, who live there, who know what they want, who want to design how they live and their relationship with the natural world and the character of the land itself. People are finding resonance with that everywhere.”
Professionally edited by an industry veteran, Small Is Beautiful features captivating drone footage from Santa Rosa photographer Jim Codington and an original, award-winning score from Southern California artist Carly Miller.
Scott says her goal is to get it on PBS, as she did with a previous film, Texas Gold. “Then you’re reaching millions of people,” she says. “It’s not about money, it’s about reach. And this film is being requested by communities that are facing the same mandates.”
She already makes Small Is Beautiful available to smaller audiences: “If you get 10 people or more, the film is free for you. I’ll show up. We’ll all come. We want people to see it.”
To contact Scott or for a list of scheduled public screenings, visit SmallIsBeautifulMovie.org.