"Humanity Ascending: A New Way Through Together" is "a cutting-edge documentary that provides a message of hope for a worried world," according to the producers. It will be shown at 7 p.m. Thursday at The Grove, 71 Orange St., New Haven, with hosts Melissa Waldron and Rachel Heerema.

Barbara Marx Hubbard narrates "Humanity Ascending: A New Way Through Together."

The narrator of the film, futurist Barbara Marx Hubbard, has been a leading voice for innovative change in the world for the past 40 years, and has been called the "intellectual heir" of R. Buckminster Fuller, according to a release.

As a visionary, author, speaker, social architect and co-founder and president of the Foundation for Conscious Evolution, she believes that humanity now, as never before, is on the threshold of a quantum leap. If we are able to integrate newly emergent scientific, social, and spiritual capacities, we could transform ourselves to move beyond our current global crises to a magnificent future equal to our vast new potential, the release stated.

"Conversations with God" author Neale Donald Walsch says, "at a time of increasing confusion and rising concern about our planet's future, the Humanity Ascending Series unravels the mystery of our collective experience in an extraordinary overview that is breathtaking in its scope, startling in its clarity, and gloriously hopeful in its thoughts about tomorrow, demonstrating once again why Barbara Marx Hubbard is considered a global treasure and one of the greatest visionaries of our time."

For more information on the film, visit the Humanity Ascending website. Melissa Waldron, a writer, consultant and local food systems advocate, writes the blog Fertile Ground USA and is a member of the New Haven Register's Community Media Lab.