Indigenous farmers in Peru, Nicaragua, Italy, France, Australia and New Zealand share their intimacy with the land and the seeds they have nurtured for generations; global corporations attempt to 'own' the intellectual property of seeds.
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Summer unveils a new blueberry season in northern Canada. The fields are covered in blue and workers from all over scramble before the frost puts an end to the harvest. And yet this time of year is much more than just picking: it's a time of music and connection.
Milk is Big Business. Behind the innocent appearances of the white stuff lies a multi-billion euro industry, which perhaps isn't so innocent…
Exposing the dark underbelly of modern animal agriculture through drones, hidden & handheld cameras, the feature-length film explores the morality and validity of our dominion over the animal kingdom.
King Corn is a fun and crusading journey into the digestive tract of our fast food nation where one ultra-industrial, pesticide-laden, heavily-subsidized commodity dominates the food pyramid from top to bottom – corn. Fueled by curiosity and a dash of naiveté, two college buddies return to their ancestral home of Greene, Iowa to figure out how a modest kernel conquered America. With the help of some real farmers, oodles of fertilizer and government aide, and some genetically modified seeds, the friends manage to grow one acre of corn. Along the way, they unlock the hilarious absurdities and scary but hidden truths about America’s modern food system in this engrossing and eye-opening documentary.
A look at man's relationship with Dirt. Dirt has given us food, shelter, fuel, medicine, ceramics, flowers, cosmetics and color --everything needed for our survival. For most of the last ten thousand years we humans understood our intimate bond with dirt and the rest of nature. We took care of the soils that took care of us. But, over time, we lost that connection. We turned dirt into something "dirty." In doing so, we transform the skin of the earth into a hellish and dangerous landscape for all life on earth. A millennial shift in consciousness about the environment offers a beacon of hope - and practical solutions.
This Emmy award-winning documentary chronicles a vanishing piece of Americana: the last remaining agricultural encampment fair in the country, and the families who spend months preparing for this unique rural phenomenon.
This film explores food sustainability, how farmers' markets build community, and why local food matters. Filmmaker Dr. Benjamin Garner is an Associate Professor at the University of North Georgia. He produces films on food, marketing, and tourism. Dr. Garner consults with companies on soft skills training and produces video ads for web and social media.
A partnership between the Government of Mali and an American agricultural investor may see 200-square kilometers of Malian land transformed into a large-scale sugar cane plantation. Land Rush documents the hopes, fears, wishes, and demands of small-scale subsistence farmers in the region who look to benefit, or lose out, from the deal.
Every year, a Kurdish family leaves Gaziantep (Anatolia) to work on the land near Ankara. This thankless life of seasonal labor turns upside down when the eldest son falls in love.
Elephants disrupt the lives of a family deep in the jungles of Northern Siam, and an entire village.
“Other People’s Footage: Copyright & Fair Use” uses on-camera interviews with 19 noted documentarians including Haskell Wexler, Tia Lessin, Carl Deal, and Scott Hamilton Kennedy along with several legal experts to examine the three questions crucial to determining fair use exemptions for documentary filmmakers. The documentary presents illustrative examples from nonfiction films that use pre-existing footage, music and sound from other individuals' creations—without permission or paying fees.
Good Copy Bad Copy is a documentary about copyright and culture in the context of Internet, peer-to-peer file sharing and other technological advances.
America's policy of producing cheap food at all costs has long hobbled small independent farmers, ranchers, and chefs. Worried for their survival, trailblazing food writer Ruth Reichl reaches out across political and social divides to uncover the country's broken food system and the innovators risking it all to transform it.
A strange story from Somerset, England about a filmmaking farmer and the inspiring legacy of his long-lost home movies.
Bob Ross brought joy to millions as the world's most famous art instructor. But a battle for his business empire cast a shadow over his happy trees.
Shot in Southern England over the course of six weeks by a crew of three American filmmakers, CircleSpeak offers a nuanced look at the passions and beliefs of the people immersed in the crop circle phenomenon during the season of 2001. This feature-length documentary presents interviews with serious “researchers”, self-proclaimed “hoaxers”, local farmers and villagers who are all, in one way or another, involved in this strange and compelling summer spectacle taking place year after year.
With great bawdiness and backbone, a rugby team made up of farmers strive to redeem themselves from a long run of bitter losses. In the face of the hefty demands of farming and fatherhood, the Saturday game becomes the focus of the men’s passions and the ground on which their worth is proved. ‘The Ground We Won’ is a highly authentic, slice of life film about the challenges and joys of manhood, as seen through the rites and rituals of a rural New Zealand rugby club.
The successes and failures of a couple determined to live in harmony with nature on a farm outside of Los Angeles are lovingly chronicled by filmmaking farmer John Chester, in this inspiring documentary.
Within the last half century, our agriculture and food has changed more than it has changed before in several thousand years. New technologies and scientific ingenuity have given rise to genetically modified organisms (GMO) and other novel foods. Some people have raised concerns about the safety of GMOs in our food supply, given their incredible dominance in the majority of our diet. Traditional, organic farmers, have consistently been under attack by large corporate farming interests, who seek to dominate the food industry and run family farms out of business. This film looks at our current food system as well as a variety of smaller, organic options available to consumers who want to support sustainable farming methods.
Is there a mental health crisis in agriculture in Colorado? Farming and ranching has become increasingly difficult over the years. An industry that is typically viewed as romantic, hardworking, and "salt-of-the earth" is actually a job full of tremendous stress outside of anyone's control. Combine that with the enormous generational pressure to continue the family farm, and you have a large group of people that are suffering silently. How do we take care of those that are taking care of us?