Focused on empowering young people to imagine and articulate a better future for humanity, PROJECT: FORWARD is an independent global documentary initiative and a youth media initiative created by filmmaker Bogdan Heretoiu encouraging humanity to collectively envision a more compassionate, cooperative, and sustainable future led by the voices of younger generations.

The project’s central mission is to “re-normalize” hope, imagination, and collective dreaming at a time of global political, social, and cultural instability. It argues that humanity must rethink ideas such as success, citizenship, and culture beyond profit-driven systems, and instead prioritize mutual respect, cooperation, human well-being, and global responsibility.

Its first phase, *“Are We There Yet?”*, aims to gather video stories and future visions from young people across all 195 UN-recognized countries, in their own languages, exploring what a better future for humanity could look like beyond political and cultural divisions. These young thinkers will imagine and explore what our future civilization could look like if redesigned through the lens of mutual respect, cultural diversity, and non-ideological social inclusion and cooperation.

The project combines a documentary series with a long-term vision for a nonprofit-style collaborative media platform where young voices from around the world can continue sharing stories, ideas, and civic dialogue. It positions itself as human-centered, nonpartisan, anti-cynicism, and intentionally independent from corporate media platforms and political influence.

PROJECT: FORWARD has two main components:

1. A documentary series — “Are We There Yet?”
2. FORWARDTV — a collaborative youth media platform

PROJECT: FORWARD — "Are We There Yet?" is a 10–12 episode global documentary series featuring young people (primarily ages 16–25) from all 195 UN-recognized countries. Participants will share, in their own languages, their visions for humanity’s future across topics such as education, healthcare, social systems, peace, and environmental responsibility. The series aims to highlight shared human hopes across cultural and political divides.

FORWARDTV is a future citizen-journalism and storytelling platform designed to connect young creators worldwide through articles, videos, podcasts, and collaborative media projects. With an estimated startup budget of approximately $40,000, the project seeks support through donations, subscriptions, partnerships, grants, and volunteer collaboration.

Key principles of the project include:

• Human-centered storytelling and cross-cultural understanding
• Political and ideological neutrality
• Independent, nonprofit-oriented media distribution
• Rejection of corporate, political, or religious influence
• Minimal reliance on major tech platforms
• No use of generative AI in creative production

The project plans to operate in phases:

• Phase 1: Private pre-seed fundraising and foundational support
• Phase 2: Partnerships, NGO collaboration, and fiscal sponsorship
• Phase 3: Expansion into a permanent global independent media ecosystem

With an estimated startup budget of approximately $40,000, the project seeks support through donations, subscriptions, partnerships, grants, and volunteer collaboration.

At its core, the project is a large-scale civic storytelling experiment focused on hope, global cooperation, cultural understanding, and giving younger generations a voice in imagining – and working toward – the future they will inherit.

PROJECT: FORWARD — "Are We There Yet?" Series intends to highlight the necessity to collectively imagine our future, and to remind everyone that imagining and designing our future society is the blueprint of progress. 

PROJECT: FORWARD is a statement of resilience and hope, and a call to action toward a world centered around the well-being of all human beings and protection of nature.