Months before young people began to follow Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, three college friends from Texas began a year-long journey to recapture the spirit of the 1960s and find a way to make a difference in the world.

On Saturday, about 20 people watched their documentary, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone,” at Cafe Revolution on Main Street in Napa. Two of the three filmmakers, Arturo Perez Jr. and Joel Sadler, attended the screening.

Olivia Everett and Nicholette Jones, two Justin-Siena High School graduates, arranged the free screening of the documentary in an effort to encourage more young people to vote.

 “I was inspired by it,” said Everett, who graduated in May from the University of Southern California, where she majored in film.

 Perez, Sadler and Bill Troy met as undergraduates at the University of Texas at Austin and arrived in San Francisco in August 2006 with one question — what are the differences between the young people of today and those of the ’60s?

After driving cross-country in a U-Haul to the city where thousands flocked during Summer of Love 40 years earlier, Perez and his friends interviewed hippies, peace activists, students, police officers and immigrants as they traveled from Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco to UC Berkeley and even to Mexico.

They asked how they could rejuvenate the spirit of the ’60s as they addressed today’s issues, including the war in Iraq, an unpopular president, economic injustice and illegal immigration.

They filmed tree-sitters at UC Berkeley trying to prevent the university from cutting a grove of trees for a new football stadium; they interviewed an illegal immigrant who explained why she moved to San Francisco.

“I don’t ask for welfare. I just want what’s best for my girls so that they can become something in life,” said the unidentified woman as she viewed the Pacific Ocean for the first time.

In Lafayette, they met Jeff Heaton, a peace activist who co-founded a movement to erect hundreds of white crosses on a steep hill near Highway 24 in honor of soldiers killed in Iraq. They also interviewed parents of soldiers, including the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq. He was her only son, she said.

“Our goal was to get people excited about politics,” said Perez, 25, a film major in college who directed the movie, editing 85 hours of footage to produce the 70-minute documentary.

To finance the $15,000 film, Perez and his two friends worked odd jobs.

They were plenty of hurdles and setbacks to overcome along the way.

Bobby Seale, the founder of the Black Panther Party, told them he would not grant them an interview unless he was paid. The interview never took place.

On Saturday, Sadler said that they stayed for weeks at a youth hostel in San Francisco while they searched for a more permanent place to stay. They had no friends, no jobs and no credit.

Perez’s car was robbed on the same day a homeless man tried to stab him with a knife, while the three friends volunteered to participate in the city’s effort to count homeless people.

In the end, they managed to find an apartment, jobs and friends.

They also came to the conclusion that everyone can contribute to improve the world, one step at a time, no matter the era. “We now know it’s not the ’60s,” Perez said.

“Where Have All the Flowers Gone” premiered in August at the Wine Country Film Festival.

Former Justin-Siena students Everett and Jones began to promote the film after it aired at Copia during the festival.

The documentary encourages people to become more active, they said.

Pamela Holm came Saturday to watch the documentary at Cafe Revolution. Holm, whose 23-year-old daughter Cara appears briefly in the film, found the documentary “really moving.”

While young people may not be hitting the streets as they did in the ’60s, they are very involved, said the 47-year-old writer.

“I think there is a real engagement. But I think there is also pragmatism,” Holm said.

Stephen Ashton, producer and director of the Wine Country Film Festival, said the filmmakers submitted a rough cut. He made recommendations and they sent a final version before he entered the film in the festival. It was very well received, Ashton said.

Perez now works for a production company in San Francisco; Sadler recently returned to San Francisco after completing his undergraduate degree at the University of Texas; Troy is a second-year law school student in Wisconsin.

“Where Have All the Flowers Gone” can be viewed for free online at www.Flowers

TheMovie.com.