DVD for Sustainable Agriculture - learningemall.com
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Blending seriousness and whimsy, filmmaker Ian Cheney explores the promise and perils of urban farming.
TRUCK FARM tells the story of a new generation of American farmers. Using green roof technology and heirloom seeds, filmmaker Ian Cheney plants a vegetable garden on the only land he's got: his Granddad's old pickup. Once the mobile garden begins to sprout, viewers are trucked across New York to see the city's funkiest urban farms, and to find out if America's largest city can learn to feed itself.
Blending serious exposition with serious silliness, TRUCK FARM entreats viewers to ponder the future of urban farming, and to consider whether sustainability needs a dose of whimsy to be truly sustainable. Featuring nutritionist Marion Nestle, chef Dan Barber, explorer Henry Hudson and a very lonely seagull.
Reviews
"Alternately giddy and pragmatic, Truck Farm makes the best sales pitch for grow-your-own I've ever seen. A must-see for anyone interested in agricultural empowerment and diversity." - Dr. Warren Belasco, Professor, American Studies, University of Maryland, Author, Food: The Key Concepts, Editor, Food, Culture and Society
"Truck Farm illustrates a rebirth of interest among young people in agriculture. With passion and ingenuity, you can find a way to farm anywhere." - Dr. Joseph Heckman, Professor, Department of Plant Biology and Pathology, Rutgers University
"This film is so mind altering, you will never look at an empty space the same way again, no matter how small!" Laurie David, Author, The Family Dinner: Great Ways to Connect with Your Kids, One Meal at a Time, Producer, An Inconvenient Truth
Awards
Audience Award & Jury Award, Green Film Festival, Seoul
Most Uplifting Film Award, Cinema Verde Environmental Film Festival
Jury Honorable Mention, Wild & Scenic Environmental Film Festival
The story of Earth's most valuable and underappreciated source of fertility, from its miraculous beginning to its crippling degradation.
Dirt! The Movie introduces viewers to dirt's fascinating history. Four billion years of evolution have created the dirt that recycles our water, gives us food, provides us shelter, and that can be used as a source of medicine, beauty and culture.
However, people have become greedy and careless, endangering this vital living resource with destructive methods of agriculture, mining practices, and urban development. The word dirt has become "dirty". This abusive behavior has yielded catastrophic results, which the film does not shy away from: mass starvation, drought, floods and global warming.
Dirt! The Movie proves that times are changing. More than 25 renowned global visionaries in countries around the world are discovering new ways of thinking as they come together to repair this natural resource with practical, viable solutions. These participants include Bill Logan, Andy Lipkis, Dr. Vandana Shiva, Fritjof Capra, Pierre Rabhi, Wangari Maathai, Wes Jackson and Majora Carter.
To capture these prescient people and their inspiring stories, the production team filmed in more than 20 locations, including Argentina, Brazil, France, India, Kenya, and several regions of the United States.
On their journey, the filmmakers found:
farmers and agronomists re-discovering sustainable agriculture
tiny villages standing up for their right to feed their families
scientists discovering connections with soil that can help reduce global warming including ways to generate electricity from soils and sediments
inmates finding inner peace and job skills in a prison horticulture program
children uncovering the secrets of soil fertility and eating from edible schoolyards.
Dirt! The Movie uncovers the surprising ways we can repair our relationship with dirt and create new possibilities for all life on earth. You may never look at the ground beneath your feet quite the same.
Reviews
"A great way to introduce people to the importance of healthy soil." - Dr. Linda Chalker-Scott, Washington State University
"A strong call to renew our ties with the land and protect life-sustaining dirt." - Booklist
"Clearly, dirt doesn't enjoy a good name--just think of 'dirt poor' and 'dirty jokes.' Yet in filmmakers Bill Benenson and Gene Roscow's Dirt! The Movie...dirt emerges as one of the noblest substances on earth...Highly recommended." - Video Librarian
Awards
Best Film for Our Future, Mendocino Film Festival
Best Green Documentary, Maui Film Festival
Best Documentary, Visions/Voices, Eckerd College Environmental Film Festival
Classroom version of classic film about how two friends uncover the devastating impact of corn on the environment, public health and family farms.
KING CORN is a feature documentary about two friends, one acre of corn, and the subsidized crop that drives our fast-food nation.
In KING CORN, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, best friends from college on the East Coast, move to the heartland to learn where their food comes from. With the help of friendly neighbors, genetically modified seeds, and powerful herbicides, they plant and grow a bumper crop of America's most-productive, most-subsidized grain on one acre of Iowa soil. But when they try to follow their pile of corn into the food system, what they find raises troubling questions about how we eat - and how we farm.
Features Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, and Earl Butz, former US Secretary of Agriculture.
This disc also includes the new companion film, BIG RIVER, on the environmental consequences of industrial agriculture.
Reviews
"An excellent introduction to any course on food and agriculture in the United States." - Lawrence Busch, Director, Institute for Food and Agricultural Standards, Michigan State University
"Excellent job...Highly appropriate for courses on the culture and politics of food, health or agriculture." - Deeadra Brown, CUNY, Anthropology Review Database
"Easy to watch and interwoven with quirky animation; recommended for any library, but especially those in areas with a high interest in sustainability and environmentalism." - Library Journal
David Suzuki and daughter Sarika travel to Europe to visit inspiring people and projects that give hope for a sustainable future.
For the past 30 years, geneticist and science broadcaster, David Suzuki, host of CBC's "The Nature of Things," has been warning television audiences around the world about the dangers of taking nature for granted. He has urged us to change our consumer lifestyles, and to put brakes on an economic system that values unlimited growth above all other considerations.
THE SUZUKI DIARIES takes a different path. It follows Suzuki and his youngest daughter, Sarika, as they travel to Europe to explore what a sustainable future might look like, and to see if two different generations can find reason for hope.
As they travel through Germany, Denmark, France and Spain, father and daughter begin to see what is possible as they meet the people who are working towards restoring the equilibrium between human needs and planetary limits.
Amongst the projects the people and projects they feature are: in Germany, Hermann Scheer, politician and author of the innovative and influential feed-in tariffs that created vibrant renewable energy industry; Berlin's photovoltaic-powered central railroad station; the newly renovated Reichstag Building; and Studio 7.5 which designed the fully recyclable Mirra chair.
In Denmark, they visit Preben Maegaard, president of World Wind Energy Association. Denmark leads the world in the proportion of energy use that comes from wind. They also look at Copenhagen's traffic where 40% of the population bicycles to work or school.
In France they tour the farm of Nicholas Joly, a banker turned organic farmer who is producing biodynamic wine.
And in Spain, they check out a major concentrating solar power project by Abengoa Solar and the new high-speed rail network, where 190-mph trains will hopefully make carbon-intensive air travel between the major cities obsolete.
Reviews
"Highly recommended...ecologically friendly energy solutions are already in use on a wide scale across the pond." - The New Resilient
"This is a remarkable journey--into beautiful places, but also into the future. We need good solid hope right now, and here it is, in living color." - Bill McKibben, Author, Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet
"The most personalized episode...Revealing. Sarika explains how, as a child, her parents' harangues about eco-politics left her feeling helpless. When she told her father, he says he began to understand the need to focus on practical solutions, not just on doomsday threats...That is inspirational." - Bruce Kirkland, Winnipeg Sun
Award
Chris Award, Columbus International Film and Video Festival
A witty and provocative documentary about kids and food politics.
What's On Your Plate? Is a witty and provocative documentary about kids and food politics. Over the course of one year, the film follows two eleven-year-old multiracial city kids as they explore their place in the food chain. Sadie and Safiyah talk to food activists, farmers, and storekeepers, as they address questions regarding the origin of the food they eat, how it's cultivated, and how many miles it travels from farm to fork.
Sadie and Safiyah visit supermarkets, fast food chains, and school lunchrooms. But they also check out innovative sustainable food system practices by going to farms, greenmarkets, and community supported agriculture (CSA) programs. They discover that these options have a number of positive effects: they are good for the environment, help struggling farmers survive, and provide affordable, locally grown food to communities, especially lower-income urban families.
The film culminates with a delicious local meal cooked by the girls and friends they have made along the way. Sadie and Safiyah formulate sophisticated and compassionate opinions about urban sustainability, and by doing so inspire hope and active engagement in others.
Reviews
"Exactly the film we need right now." Michael Pollan, author, In Defense of Food and The Omnivore's Dilemma
"What's On Your Plate? Is exactly the film we need right now." - Michael Pollan, Author, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto and The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
"This movie can have a real impact on the way we think about what we're eating." - Alice Waters, chef, author and founder of the Edible Schoolyard
An intimate look at the farmers, ranchers, and businesses that are creating a more sustainable food system in the Pacific Northwest.
Directed by Mark Dworkin, Melissa Young
Editor: Mark Dworkin
Screenwriter: Melissa Young, Mark Dworkin
Cinematographer: Mark Dworkin
Music: Jami Sieber, Mark Graham, Los Emocionantes, Jack Knauer Band
Something remarkable is happening in the fields and orchards of the Pacific Northwest. After leaving the land for decades, family farmers are making a comeback. They are growing much healthier food, and more food per acre, while using less energy and water than factory farms. And most of this food is organic.
For decades Northwest agriculture was focused on a few big crops for export. But climate change and the end of cheap energy mean that each region needs to produce more of its own food and to grow it more sustainably. Good Food visits farmers, farmers' markets, distributors, stores, restaurants and public officials who are developing a more sustainable food system for all.
Reviews
"Offers a celebration of those working to turn things around and make them right." - Seattle International Film Festival
"Couldn't be more timely! A film made to awaken our taste buds and our courage -- to create a food system aligned with what the earth needs and what our bodies yearn for. GOOD FOOD shows us it's possible. It's happening!" - Frances Moore Lappe, author, Diet for a Small Planet, Hope's Edge
"Exhilarating...Chronicles a veritable revolution going on all around us...This one is not out to scare us with an environmental horror story so much as to inspire us." - William Arnold, Seattle Post- Intelligencer
"A must-see...It boldly pulls the viewer into the extremely broad and complex landscape of organic food production. Incorporating health and economic impacts in an assessment of our methods of food production and consumption makes this film especially powerful." - Laura Skelton, Program Director, Facing the Future
"The film visits many of the pioneers in the movement to 're-localize' our food system and documents, first hand, the tremendous grassroots work that is being done here in the Northwest." - Mary Embleton, Executive Director, Cascade Harvest Coalition
"Not only does the film convey the ingenious methods of some of the sustainable producers, but it also shows innovative ways they are marketing their products to help sustain themselves as family farmers." - Maurice Robinette, Washington Sustainable Food and Farming Network
"Captures the joy and creativity of the northwest's sustainable farming community, and the love they have for their work. It looks at the deep human connections created through food, both to other people and to the earth." - On Screen Magazine
"Makes the important personal connection between the source and your table." -21 Acres
"After watching this documentary you will be moved to cook and to eat well!" - Sound Food
"Excellent, straightforward...does an especially good job showing what the face of small farms and markets look like today." - Edible Seattle
Awards
Seattle International Film Festival
United Nations Association Film Festival, Stanford
Fishing communities on France's western coast show the path to sustainability.
Directed by Charles Menzies and Jennifer Rashleigh
In today's global economy, the world's ocean resources are being hit hard. Enormous industrial "floating factories" follow the fish wherever they are abundant, and move on when they have plundered the fish stocks. In the process, they squeeze the life out of small and local fishing communities.
The fishing communities of the Bigouden, on France's rugged Western coast, are determined to fight back. From the Paris fish riots of 1991, to the newly formed World Forum for Fish Harvesters, these small town fishermen have launched a sophisticated and multi-faceted strategy to stay small and successful in the face of global competition.
Filmed in ports from Western Canada to France, from Scotland to Senegal, Weather The Storm introduces viewers to the logic underlying both industrial and artisanal fishing economies. It provides compelling evidence for the environmental and socio-economic benefits of staying small and local. Although the battle to save the oceans is often publicly waged between environmentalists and corporations, this film gives voice to an important group who just may have the solutions we need: the small-scale artisanal fishers.
Reviews
"Argue[s] that 'choosing to stay local is the best way to stay sustainable.'" - Dr. Courtney Carothers, University of Alaska Fairbanks
"Weather the Storm tells the story of local fishers everywhere under pressure. By taking a stand against industrial fleets that devastate fish stocks worldwide, fishers on the western coast of France may have just the solutions we need to save fish, fishers, and their communities." - James R. Karr, Professor Emeritus, Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, University of Washington
Crusading American tea importer, David Lee Hoffman, supports China's endangered organic farmers by searching out fine, chemical-free teas.
The latest film from distinguished documentarian Les Blank, in collaboration with co-director Gina Leibrecht, follows American tea importer David Lee Hoffman to some of the most remote regions of China in search of the world's finest teas.
Hoffman is obsessed; during his youth he spent four years with Tibetan monks in Nepal, which included a friendship with the Dalai Lama, and was introduced to some of the finest of teas. Unable to find anything but insipid tea bags in the U.S., Hoffman began traveling to China, the homeland of tea. There, he struggles against language barriers and Byzantine business codes to convince the Chinese that the farmers make better tea than the factories and that their craft should be honored and preserved.
This craft can not be learned from a book, but has been handed down through generations of tea makers for thousands of years. He drags the reluctant tea factory aficionados up a lush, terraced mountainside and brings them face to face with those "dirty" farmers. In an ironic twist, Hoffman reintroduces them to one of their country's oldest traditions.
But Hoffman is even a step ahead of his own country in that he is advocating "fair trade" and organics. Images of the farmers standing on urban street corners selling a week's harvest for three dollars, in the shadow of China's increasing number of high rises, illustrate the paradox that stepping into the modern world imposes.
Tea experts James Norwood Pratt, Gaetano Kazuo Maida, and Winnie W. Yu provide the fundamentals of tea, lending weight to Hoffman's endeavor.
Reviews
"Packs in more information (not to mention pleasure) per celluloid foot than just about anything you'll see this year fiction or non." - Dennis Harvey, San Francisco Bay Guardian
"An entertaining portrait of an eccentric figure whose singular passion proves infectious." - The Hollywood Reporter
"This film is a labor of love by Les Blank and Gina Leibrecht, and is a gentle, poetic film about one man's passion for tea." - Alex Lee, New Zealand International Documentary Film Festival
"Packs in more information (not to mention pleasure) per celluloid foot than just about anything you'll see this year fiction or non." - Dennis Harvey, San Francisco Bay Guardian
"A delightful ode." - Jeffrey M. Anderson, Cinematical.com
Looks at the benefits of fair trade goods and product certification for people and the environment.
Under the auspices of the WTO, globalization of world trade seems like a juggernaut that will not be stopped. But is there a way to make trade FAIR? How can retailers and consumers use their purchasing power and market choice to make the world better for people and the environment? What is the promise of product certification and labeling?
BUYER BE FAIR looks at two major trade goods -- timber and coffee -- to find out how certification works and whether it helps the world's poor, and their lands. Can the lessons from certification of timber, by the Forest Stewardship Council, and coffee, by Fair Trade, be applied to other products?
BUYER BE FAIR takes viewers to Mexico, the Netherlands, the UK, Sweden, the USA and Canada, where compelling stories and characters raise and answer these questions in a powerful documentary that explores new ways to make globalization work for all of us.
Reviews
"It's moving, it's gorgeous, it's engaging, and the viewer feels empowered, not preached to." Frances Moore Lappe, author of "Diet for a Small Planet" and "Hope's Edge"
"Buyer Be Fair will have a huge impact. It's moving, it's gorgeous, it's engaging, and the viewer feels empowered, not preached to." Frances Moore Lappe, author of "Diet for a Small Planet" and "Hope's Edge"
"The film makes one simple point: as consumers we have the power. When we buy products with eco-labels like the Forest Stewardship Council and Fair Trade we really make a difference, for both people and nature." Barbara Bramble, National Wildlife Federation
"Buyer Be Fair offers an engaging look into one of the hottest topics in today's marketplace. Its straightforward approach illuminates the considerable and increasing power that is in our hands as consumers to have a direct impact on the lives (and environments) of countless people. This film helps people understand WHY to care and WHAT to do." Daniele Giovannucci, World Bank, Senior Consultant and author of "The State of Sustainable Coffee" and "Coffee Markets: New Paradigms in Global Supply and Demand"
"BUYER BE FAIR is an excellent introduction to how fair trade can be a win-win innovation in the marketplace. Students will enjoy the clear exposition, and teachers will find that the documentary opens many doors to classroom discussion. The documentary has two parts-one on coffee and one on lumber-that can be seen and discussed in two separate class sessions." Michael Kevane, Associate Professor of Economics, Santa Clara University
"Buyer Be Fair shows us that our economic decisions need not be made in a moral vacuum; that our purchases in the marketplace are a statement of the type of world we wish to live in. It carefully explains the concept of fair trade and demonstrates the power American consumers could have in transforming the global economy. A must see for every American consumer." Paul Winters, Dept. of Economics, American University
"As a professor of business and society courses, I am excited about Buyer Be Fair. Fair trade and product certification are two extremely important practices that can link corporations, consumers, and producers together in socially responsible ways to address challenging global issues of poverty, environmental degradation and social justice. Textbook discussions of certification and fair trade are relatively uncommon, and fail to effectively communicate their essence and potential. Buyer Be Fair provides viewers with an understanding of these practices and their importance. This film helps fair trade and product certification move from abstract concepts to real, practical mechanisms for making the world a better place." Gordon Rands, Associate Professor of Management, Western Illinois University
"A fair, balanced look at certifying timber and other products. It left me wanting to purchase only certified coffee in the future!... [Buyer Be Fair] portrays so well the relationship between economic and environmental sustainability." Sally D. Collins, Associate Chief, USDA/Forest Service
Awards
Honorable Mention, Wild & Scenic Environmental Film Festival
Environmental Film Festival in the Nation's Capital
Examines Cuba's response to the food crisis created by the collapse of the Soviet Bloc in 1989.
Sustainable Agriculture examines Cuba's response to the food crisis created by the collapse of the Soviet Bloc in 1989. At one time Cuba's agrarian culture was as conventional as the rest of the world. It experienced its first "Green Revolution" when Russia was supplying Cuba with chemical and mechanical "inputs." However, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 ended all of that, and almost overnight threw Cuba's whole economic system into crisis. Factories closed, food supplies plummeted. Within a year the country had lost over 80% of its foreign trade. With the loss of their export markets and the foreign exchange to pay for imports, Cuba was unable to feed its population and the country was thrown into a crisis. The average daily caloric intake of Cubans dropped by a third.
Without fertilizer and pesticides, Cubans turned to organic methods. Without fuel and machinery parts, Cubans turned to oxen. Without fuel to transport food, Cubans started to grow food in the cities where it is consumed. Urban gardens were established in vacant lots, school playgrounds, patios and back yards. As a result Cuba created the largest program in sustainable agriculture ever undertaken. By 1999 Cuba's agricultural production had recovered and in some cases reached historic levels.
Reviews
"Anyone interested in ecologically sustainable development and humanity's future in the context of depleting resources in the 20th Century will find this documentary thought provoking." - Gregory Biniowsky, Canadian Development and the Environment Consultant living in Cuba
"If necessity is the mother of invention, then this vivid and beautifully filmed documentary shows how the Cuban people have faced adversity and austerity with a dogged inventiveness since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the start of the "special period" beginning in 1990. The film will be especially useful and instructive for viewers looking to solve the riddle of how Cuba has survived a depression-like upheaval while struggling to maintain enviable standards of social security for its people." - Ted Henken, Ph.D., Sociology Department, Baruch College and Board Member, Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy
By growing an acre of corn in Iowa two friends uncover the devastating impact that corn is having on the environment, public health and family farms.
KING CORN is a feature documentary about two friends, one acre of corn, and the subsidized crop that drives our fast-food nation.
In KING CORN, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, best friends from college on the east coast, move to the heartland to learn where their food comes from. With the help of friendly neighbors, genetically modified seeds, and powerful herbicides, they plant and grow a bumper crop of America's most-productive, most-subsidized grain on one acre of Iowa soil. But when they try to follow their pile of corn into the food system, what they find raises troubling questions about how we eat-and how we farm.
Features Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, and Earl Butz, former US Secretary of Agriculture.
Reviews
"If we are what we eat, we are corn -- the modern staff of life. In a gentle but extraordinarily subversive narrative, King Corn skillfully takes us through the industrial food chain, from field to plate. All actors in this story receive compassionate treatment -- from Iowa farmers and Colorado cattlemen to diabetic New Yorkers and an engaging Earl Butz, the former USDA Secretary who advocated maximum production, damn the consequences. There are no 'bad guys' here. And yet, the net result is a devastating sketch of a food production system that is economically, ecologically, and medically unsustainable. How did we ever get into such a fix?" - Warren Belasco, Professor of American Studies, University of Maryland Baltimore County, Author, Meals to Come: A History of the Future of Food
"King Corn not only describes the debilitating industrialized agriculture system in which farmers are caught, it also reveals a food system that is not serving us citizen-eaters well. The 'cheap food' provided by our industrialized food system may turn out to be very expensive when all of the costs are considered. This film will encourage many citizens and organizations to become engaged in the food debate that has already begun in many sectors of our society and to join with others who are already part of that debate, to change the policies which, as the film points out, helped to create this food system in the first place. Everyone should see this film." - Frederick Kirschenmann, Distinguished Fellow, Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture and President of Kirschenmann Family Farms
"In this well-crafted film Ian and Curt set off to fulfill their 'dream of fields,' by farming one acre of corn in Iowa. They use that experience to explore the entire corn commodity chain from inputs all the way through to final consumption. Along the way they discover the many successes and failures brought about by the dominance of corn as the basic feedstock for most of the foods we eat. Thus, in a straightforward manner the film displays the tapestry that weaves together overproduction, farm payments, ever-growing farm size, rural depopulation, animal antibiotic use, obesity, and diabetes. I would recommend this film as an excellent introduction to any course on food and agriculture in the United States. Indeed, anyone interested in understanding the problems inherent in corn farming in mid- America-in fact, anyone who eats-should see this film." - Lawrence Busch, University Distinguished Professor, Dept. of Sociology, Director, Institute for Food and Agricultural Standards, Michigan State University
"The molecules in most Americans' bodies come more from corn than from any other source; at the same time that it has made us fat, corn monoculture has impoverished the American landscape more than any other organism. And yet, until the filming of King Corn, few Americans had a means to understand why their addiction to high-fructose corn sweeteners is the greatest threat to their health and to the health of rural communities and their landscapes. This film should be seen by every farmer, consumer and student who still believes that America has been made beautiful by our 'amber waves of grain.'" - Gary Nabhan, Author, Coming Home to Eat, Founder, Renewing America's Food Traditions initiative
"The somewhat goofy premise of two East Coast 20-somethings heading to Iowa to farm a single acre of corn actually works, and it works well. Students will be pulled in by Ian and Curt's curiosity and doggedness on their mission to understand how corn becomes us. Along the way, we learn quite a bit about the current realities of Midwest crop farming, decline and resilience in rural America, and the contradictory and disturbing implications of U.S. commodity subsidy policy in shaping the options and outcomes of our food system. King Corn presents a compelling mix of experts and regulars with clarity and compassion. It generates enough laughs to be fun, while also stimulating serious thinking about the important topic of how farm practices and policies influence the food we eat." - Clare Hinrichs, Associate Professor of Rural Sociology, Penn State University
"No doubt inspired to some degree by Super Size Me this equally engaging, slightly better-crafted docu deftly balances humor and insight...arresting factoids are delivered by helmer Aaron Woolf and collaborators in a package that's as agreeable as it is informative. Subjects' low-key antics, their affectionate regard for the small-town milieu, some delightful stop-motion animation and an excellent rootsy soundtrack by the WoWz all make "King Corn" go down easy, even if you might regard your burger, fries and Coke with suspicion afterward. Handsome lensing and Jeffrey K. Miller's sharp editing are also worthy of note." - Dennis Harvey, Variety
"The press materials for "King Corn" trumpet it as a cross between "Sicko" and "Super Size Me," but the film's protagonists, Mr. Ellis and his college friend, Ian Cheney, come off as genial searchers rather than driven interrogators...In the film, Mr. Butz is treated as respectfully as Iowa's plain-spoken farmers, and the golden fields of corn are shot to evoke their majesty. If the filmmakers are going to point any fingers, they say, they will start with themselves." - Joe Drape, The New York Times
"King Corn is as relevant as Super Size Me and as important as An Inconvenient Truth in the recent rash of documentaries that challenge our perceptions of daily life in America." - The Austin Chronicle
"An enormously entertaining moral, socio-economic odyssey (and statistical bonanza) through the American food industry. Ellis, Cheney, and Aaron Woolf's documentary is clear-minded and fair, but just damningly descriptive enough to leave you distrustful of everything on your plate." - William Morris, The Boston Globe
"Gorgeously filmed in digital video and Super-8, using clever stop-motion corn kernel animation and a lyrical score by the "anti-folk" band the WoWz, "King Corn" takes what could be a tiresome agri-civics lesson and delivers a lively, funny, sad and even poetic treatise on the reality behind America's cherished self-image as the breadbasket of the world...It should be required viewing before going into a supermarket, McDonald's or your very own refrigerator." - Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post
"Where this documentary distinguishes itself, however, is in the unusual amount of warmth it lets into the mix. Cheney and Ellis are both funny and completely unthreatening, which does not mean toothless. Like his stars, Woolf treats both friend and foe (including farm-subsidies inventor Earl Butz) with respect, refraining from sarcasm, superiority, or ambush. "King Corn" insists that we recognize the Corn Belt's beauty and intelligence along with its somewhat self-induced plight." - Janice Page, The Boston Globe
"A deceptively intelligent new entry in the regular- Joe documentary genre...a graceful and frequently humorous film that captures the idiosyncrasies of its characters and never hectors." - Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com
"This is a twofold journey: the story of how two college buddies learned about their agricultural heritage, and the tale of how kernels of corn have insidiously worked their way into America's diet-through the cows who are literally overdosing on the stuff...and the soft drinks sweetened with a syrup that the men find impossible to manufacture in a kitchen without damned near blowing up the house. A worthy companion piece to Super Size Me and Fast Food Nation...King Corn will put you off corn for a long, long time, but this is as much a thoughtful meditation on the plight of the American farmer as it is a rant against our expanding waistlines." - Robert Wilonsky, Village Voice
"The secret history of a ubiquitous grain...King Corn is penetrating and graceful, an uproariously funny and unexpectedly moving look at America's food supply, and especially at the massive corn-farming operations that have come to dominate the placid landscapes of the American Midwest." - The Isthmus (Madison, WI)
"A jauntily hip analysis of the path corn takes from Iowa cornfields to the ultimate ruination of agriculture and American health, King Corn follows in the Morgan Spurlock school with added delight and stop-motion animation. Corn can be funny, it turns out, even if it is destroying us all." - Toronto Eye Weekly
"One of the film's great strengths is the apparent warmth of relationships these guys have created with the locals of Greene, Iowa. Locals think these two kids are a bit crazy to farm a single acre in a place where 500-acre plantings seem small, but are happy to share their lives with them in a very authentic way. To their vast credit, the filmmakers never score cheap points by painting the locals as bumpkins. While primarily about the food system, King Corn also documents friendship. The film is sweet but not sugary, earnest and open-minded, and more than a little bit tragic." - Grist Magazine
"King Corn will put you off corn for a long, long time; that Coke can will start looking like a hand grenade after a while, and, really, forget that burger for now. But this is as much a thoughtful meditation on the plight of the American farmer as it is a rant against our expanding waistlines. Amazing how something so small as a kernel of corn wound up as dangerous as it is delicious." - City Pages (Minneapolis)
"Engaging and illuminating...While there have been good documentaries-"Super Size Me" comes to mind-illustrating the link between America's infatuation with junk food and the rapid rise in obesity, "King Corn" takes a fresh angle on the subject...the filmmakers show how seeds planted in soil in America's heartland end up widening Americans' girth-and how much of the food we eat is part of a huge, unseen and not always pretty assembly line." - Meg Jones, Milwaukee Sentinel Journal
"KING CORN may take a whimsical approach to its subject matter, the impact of corn on the American economy and population, but it's deadly serious when it comes to pondering its implications. Expanding waistlines, the demise of the family farm, and what exactly goes into high fructose corn syrup all come into play as the law of unintended consequences rears its ugly head, snarls and turns us into a population of corn people. Literally...When stridency can be the easiest path for a compelling film, it is the determination to remain civil that is as impressive as its meticulous scholarship. KING CORN, is a bittersweet paean to a lost way of life and eating. While being entertaining and even a little mischievous, it finds perverse outcomes, but no villains. It is informative, without creating partisanship, respectful without being patronizing, entertaining without being dumbed-down." - Andrea Chase, Killer Movie Reviews
"Ellis and Cheney have found an engaging way of getting an important point across: economic forces are driving the American food market and the direction of the drive is not based on nutrition. It is based on cheap food; and the fact that much of that food is unhealthy does not enter into the calculation. Like automobiles, the petrochemical industry, air pollution and global warming, the societal impacts of the corn chain from genetic engineering through pesticides and processing don't get dialed into the overall profit equation. The profit is in dollars to those who invest in the stock market. The price is paid by those who work with the toxins and those who live on the resulting faux food. A fun film with a message, "King Corn" may be one of those great movies that gets seen most by the wrong people." - Ron Wilkinson, Monsters and Critics
"A funny, charming and informative film that sees corn as the nexus of diet, politics, cultural tradition and what used to be called the American way of life...There are interviews, imaginative graphics and, everywhere, a sense of fun and learning...the film always teaches and entertains in equal, ample measure. It's a treat -- and it's good for you." - Shawn Levy, The Oregonian
"King Corn makes its points without much finger-wagging...It will, however, get you thinking about all that corn, and why such a low-nutrition, high-subsidy crop has become so ubiquitous in the American diet." - Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
"King Corn reveals the surprisingly destructive and direct impact of corn processing on the environment, agriculture, and ultimately, the individual." - Institute for Integrative Nutrition
"A remarkable new film...Not since the Meatrix have food issues so complex been so masterfully made plain." - Gabrielle Langholtz, Edible Brooklyn
"Simultaneously nostalgic and sinister, "King Corn" mixes full-blown Americana with fast-food follies in the Iowa heartland. By the time this documentary is over, you'll wonder if there's any real difference between "corn-fed" and "diabetic."" - John Hartl, Seattle Times
Awards
National PBS Broadcast on "Independent Lens"
Best Documentary, BendFilm Festival
Hot Docs, Canadian International Documentary Film Festival
San Francisco International Film Festival
South by Southwest Film Festival
Environmental Film Festival in the Nation's Capital
Vividly reveals the dysfunctionality of the industrialized world food system and shows what world hunger has to do with us.
Close to a billion of the nearly seven billion people on Earth are starving today. But the food we are currently producing could feed 12 billion people. This is a film about food and globalization, fishermen and farmers, the flow of goods and cash flow -- a film about scarcity amid plenty.
Why doesn't a tomato taste like a tomato today? How does one explain that 200 million people in India, supplier of 80% of Switzerland's wheat, suffer from malnutrition? Why are thousands of acres of the Amazon being cleared to grow soybeans? Is water something to which the public has a basic right or, as the CEO of the world's largest food company Nestle suggests, a foodstuff with a market value?
These distressing questions are addressed as filmmaker Erwin Wagenhofer travels from Austria to Brazil, France to Romania to interview Jean Ziegler, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, CEOs and directors of the world's largest food companies, agronomists, biologists, fishermen, farmers and farmworkers.
On a daily basis, in Vienna alone, enough left-over bread to supply a small city is destroyed. The planet has enough production power to feed everyone, but 800 million people suffer from hunger. What does world hunger have to do with us?
Reviews
"Through evocative images and compelling stories, We Feed the World illustrates the ominous ecological and societal consequences of a global food system driven solely by the relentless quest for corporate profits and growth. The documentary reflects a European perspective from which every American might learn. Clearly, the future of humanity is at risk and time is running out." - John Ikerd, Professor Emeritus, Agricultural Economics, University of Missouri, author of Sustainable Capitalism: A Matter of Common Sense, A Return to Common Sense, Small Farms are Real Farms, and Crisis and Opportunity: Sustainability in American Agriculture
"The absurdities of a globalized food industry are subject to mounting scrutiny and criticism. These excesses are illustrated with jaw-dropping efficacy in this timely documentary from Austrian filmmaker Erwin Wagenhofer." - Sofia International Film Festival
"This unsettling documentary from Austria meticulously documents how the mechanization of modern food production has created a monster. It reveals how the Western agro-industry's insatiable hunger for yield is creating poorer quality food, mind-boggling wastage, and impoverishing our natural environment and those who work in it." -iofilm
"Sincere...perversely fascinating. It's enough to put you off poultry." - Variety
"The documentary focuses on various aspects on the supply side of the food chain, giving insight to the various industries which produce food, like fishing, vegetables and poultry...It just boggles the mind, and makes you feel sad at the way things work, illogical as it may seem, in the name of profit." - A Nutshell Review
"We Feed the World highlights two of the most pressing issues of our time: food distribution and globalization. Students can surely learn much by observing the differences shown between large agribusinesses and small farmers...This film illustrates many surprising results and connections among the people who produce foods and those who consume them...A great resource to spark a dialogue about the effects of globalization on food production and distribution systems." - Laura Skelton, Assistant Program Director, Facing the Future: People and the Planet
"We Feed The World tells us that we are all part of the system, and that it is up to 'us' to change it, as we are the ones who should desire to do so." - Shift Magazine
"The film is a thoughtful look at the problems facing small food producers in the face of increasing subsidies and industrialization of agricultural processes...provides fodder for student discussion on the perils of the modern agriculture system. Strong production values make We Feed the World visually interesting as well as thought provoking." Dr. Jeffrey Miller, Professor, Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, Colorado State University
"We Feed the World ensures that viewers will rethink their ideas about what farms look like, where their groceries come from, and why people starve. A provocative instructional tool, this film will be an asset anywhere educators wish to inspire students to think critically about globalization, food, and hunger." - Charlotte Biltekoff, American Studies & Food Science and Technology Departments, University of California- Davis
"This powerful film provokes the viewer to thought about the real nature of the world's food system, and what we need to consider in moving beyond mere concern with just lower food prices...[We Feed the World] does a superb job of stirring the emotions on the way to envisioning a different and better future with regard to the way we produce the food we eat." - Gary D. Lynne, Professor, Dept. of Agricultural Economics and School of Natural Resources, University of Nebraska- Lincoln
"We Feed the World provides a thought provoking look at the global food industry...an excellent starting point for discussion of several important topics. The problems of overproduction and food waste, global corporate policies and their impacts, government regulations and subsidies, the dark side of biotechnology, environmental degradation both of the ocean's resources and the Amazon, and water rights are just some of the subjects that can be further studied and discussed after viewing this film. Recommended." - Educational Media Reviews Online
"Does this film have a place in the anthropology curriculum? Absolutely! Students, like most consumers, have virtually no connection to their food nor are interested in the technology...[We Feed the World] will increase awareness and impress students with the complexity of global food policies. The film may be used in courses on globalization, capitalism, culture change/development, or applied anthropology." - Thomas Stevenson, Ohio University, Anthropology Review Database
Awards
Bronze Plaque, Columbus International Film & Video Festival
Toronto International Film Festival
IDFA (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)
Environmental Film Festival in the Nation's Capital
The Guelph International Film Festival
The Portland International Film Festival
Belgrade International Film Festival
One World Film Festival (Prague)
Thessaloniki Film Festival
Buenos Aires Independent Film Festival
Taos Mountain Film Festival
CounterCorp Film Festival
Big Sky Documentary Film Festival
Item no.
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ZS02790567
Format
:
DVD (Color, Closed Captioned, German With English Subtitles)
Looks at the plight of apple growers in the age of globalization, and points the way to sustainable US agriculture.
Wenatchee, Washington, the "Apple Capital of the World"; this pastoral valley in the heart of the Northwest prospered for nearly a century as home to the famed Washington apple. But the good times have vanished. Apple orchardists by the thousands are going out of business and thousands more await the dreaded letter from the bank, announcing the end of their livelihoods and a uniquely American way of life.
After his own father receives just such a letter, filmmaker Guy Evans sets out on a journey to find out what went wrong here in this natural Garden of Eden. Over the course of filming, Evans witnesses small farmers struggling to compete against the Goliaths that populate today's global economy, only to be ultimately forced off their land. The future looks grim for the Apple Capital until Evans happens upon an entirely new breed of farmer, practitioners of a new model called "sustainable agriculture".
BROKEN LIMBS explores these hopeful stirrings within agriculture, outlining ways in which any individual can play a role in saving America's farmers.
Reviews
"Broken Limbs is a very accurate and moving description of what is happening to agriculture in America." - Fred Kirschenmann, Director, Center for Sustainable Agriculture, Iowa State University, organic farmer
Wenatchee, Washington, the "Apple Capital of the World"; this pastoral valley in the heart of the Northwest prospered for nearly a century as home to the famed Washington apple. But the good times have vanished. Apple orchardists by the thousands are going out of business and thousands more await the dreaded letter from the bank, announcing the end of their livelihoods and a uniquely American way of life.
After his own father receives just such a letter, filmmaker Guy Evans sets out on a journey to find out what went wrong here in this natural Garden of Eden. Over the course of filming, Evans witnesses small farmers struggling to compete against the Goliaths that populate today's global economy, only to be ultimately forced off their land. The future looks grim for the Apple Capital until Evans happens upon an entirely new breed of farmer, practitioners of a new model called "sustainable agriculture".
BROKEN LIMBS explores these hopeful stirrings within agriculture, outlining ways in which any individual can play a role in saving America's farmers.
Reviews
"Inspiring and powerful...[Broken Limbs] is cutting new ground in terms of where agriculture in this state, country and the world needs to go." - Rev. Paul Benz, Director, State Public Policy Office of Evangelical Lutheran Church
"Broken Limbs is a powerful film that, using humor and drama, gives viewers a lot to think about in this increasingly globalized world we live in...What works in this film is its intellectual honesty and the sense of hope that is its underlying message." - Rufus Woods, Editor and Publisher, The Wenatchee World
"Broken Limbs is a very accurate and moving description of what is happening to agriculture in America. Focused on apple growers in Washington State, the story reflects what is happening to hog producers in Iowa, citrus growers in Florida and dairy farmers in New York. The video offers a ray of hope---the "new farmers" who add value to their production and retain more of that value on the farm by producing the quality, attributes and services that a growing number of food customers want. A moving and compelling story." - Fred Kirschenmann, Ph.D., Director of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University and a North Dakota grain and livestock farmer
"Broken Limbs is amazing, excellent, and on the mark...The entire group was enchanted by this film... the first half of "bad news" was terrifically and delightfully offset by the second half of the film which focuses on solutions and alternatives to traditional style farming." - Michelle Frain, The Rodale Institute
"Broken Limbs will break your heart with its images of the sad plight of the independent American farmer being forced off the land by the global economic machine. But then, it will begin to heal your heart with its stories of new small scale farmers who are living well, low to the ground with a vision of a sustainable agricultural future." - Sam Keen, filmmaker, author
"Broken Limbs can well serve to demonstrate that sustainable ag "socializes" responsibility in the food system among all participants, while industrial ag "socializes" environmental and community costs onto society but jealously retains responsibility only for financial rewards." - Brad Redlin, Center for Rural Affairs
"This insightful documentary works through how agriculture is changing. It's a personal story for filmmaker Guy Evans...[b]ut the film's concerns affect us all. When Evans begins his inquiry, he is pushed toward accepting as inevitable the trends that squeeze the small-to-mid-size farmers, leaving only the largest, most globalized and vertically integrated or, maybe, a few of the smallest, niche-market producers. Evans captures the waste and sorrow this entails...But as Evans keeps searching, he finds another trend that, with nurturing, may offer hope-sustainable agriculture. It requires we reformulate decision-making so that the overall, long-term quality of life, land, and food become the defining terms. This can only be done when the farmer and the consumer understand how they are connected to each other. Starting in Washington State, Evans has examples around him. Farmers markets and produce stands abound in the Seattle area and beyond. For much of the rest of the country, the trend has weaker roots fornow, but its where we should be heading." - Deborah Popper, Co-author of The Great Plains: From Dust to Dust, Associate Professor of Geography at CUNY's College of Staten Island
"This is a poetic, lyrical film with excellent visuals of the land, appropriate musical soundtrack, and soft voiced narration. Environmental studies, science, and current events classes can utilize this film and be challenged to live with hope for the future and believe that 'one by one we change the world.'" - Patricia Ann Owens, School Library Journal
"If you're looking for a video to provide background information and be the springboard for a group discussion about agricultural issues [Broken Limbs is] worth considering... I can imagine this video being shown to church classes or social justice groups and being the impetus for a church or home becoming the drop-off site for a CSA operation or meat producer." - Dana Jackson, The Land Stewardship Letter
"Provides a vivid example of how agribusiness and world trade practices have disasterously impacted family farming of apple orchards...[a] strongly recommended addition to school, college, and community library collections." - Midwest Book Review
"The production elements of Broken Limbs are excellent. Highly recommended for anyone with an interest in agriculture. Broken Limbs presents a refreshing look at ways that farmers can survive and even thrive without becoming bogged down in discussing the often depressing outlook for the future of the family farm." - Educational Media Reviews Online
Awards
The Chris Statuette, Columbus International Film & Video Festival
The perils and promise of fish farms in a world running out of ocean fish stocks.
Aquaculture was intended to take the pressure off ocean fish stocks and help avert a global food shortage, but many experts now believe that some forms of "fish farming" are actually creating more problems than they're solving... and time is running out.
The sequel to the award-winning PBS Special EMPTY OCEANS, EMPTY NETS, FARMING THE SEAS explores what's at stake for us all. As the aquaculture industry explodes across the globe, a growing number of communities and fisheries experts are engaged in an intense debate over its environmental, socio-economic, and health and food safety consequences.
Market demand for seafood now far exceeds the ocean's ability to keep pace, and the crisis is deepening. Worldwide, most marine fisheries are either fully exploited or in sharp decline. With stunning visuals and compelling narration, FARMING THE SEAS journeys around the world documenting the most important stories as they unfold. From the indigenous tribes of British Columbia to the large-scale operations of multinational corporations, from Mediterranean fishermen to Thai shrimp farmers, FARMING THE SEAS gathers perspectives from around the globe as it examines the problems and the promises of this emerging industry.
The viability of the global food chain and the sustainability of our oceans' fisheries hang in the balance.
Reviews
"Well-crafted and important environmental documentary that combines superb research, production values and journalism...My students were educated, entertained, and inspired..." - David L. Brown, City College of San Francisco
"Excellent footage of aquaculture operations...It is easy to see why Farming the Seas won the award for Best Marine Conservation Message at the International Wildlife Film Festival and a host of other awards as well. It is well researched, well edited and a timely and interesting look at the potential problems associated with aquaculture. I highly recommend this video to all libraries." - Barbara Butler, Educational Media Reviews Online
Awards
Best Independent Film & Best Marine Conservation Message, International Wildlife Film Festival, Missoula
United Nations Association Film Festival
Environmental Film Festival in the Nation's Capital
Many coffee-producing countries like Ethiopia are facing economic disaster even as the demand for coffee increases worldwide.
Coffee is the second most traded commodity in the world-a major cash crop for many poor, developing countries trying to trade their way out of poverty. Coffee promises to increase developing countries' share of income from agricultural products on world markets-in line with Millennium Development Goal No 8's commitment to a global partnership for development. But for the last 10 years the international coffee industry has been in crisis-and many coffee-producing countries are facing disaster. The world's 25 million coffee farmers receive less than one per cent of the price of a cup of coffee sold in a coffee bar. Life visits Ethiopia, the cradle of coffee cultivation, and speaks to players in the international coffee trade to find out how individual coffee growers can survive the boom and bust of the global coffee market.
Examines the controversy surrounding salmon farms, and the threat they pose to wild salmon.
All over the world, fish are at the heart of people's diet and culture. And in the Pacific Northwest, there is no fish like the legendary salmon. But decades of poor fisheries management and habitat loss have decimated many wild salmon runs. Now there's a new way to produce fish-raising them in giant underwater cages known as "net pens." At first, these pens and the salmon farms that use them seem like a good idea, providing more fish for consumption, while taking the pressure off their wild counterparts. But the farms themselves have become a serious new threat to the survival of wild salmon.
Filmed in Chile, Washington, and British Columbia, NET LOSS assesses the risks and benefits of salmon farming through interviews with government and industry spokesmen, who make the case for salmon farming, and the fishermen, native people, and scientists
Reviews
"Net Loss probes one of the most important and cautionary tales for the future relationship between humanity and the sea. We need to think long and hard about this film." - Carl Safina, President, Blue Ocean Institute
"An old Chinese proverb, 'The fish sees the bait, not the hook; a person sees the gain, not the danger', warns of the unexpected consequences of new technologies. 'Net Loss: The Storm Over Salmon Farming' introduces many of the consequences of salmon netpens, at the same time as it humanizes their effects for individuals and cultures in regions from Chile to the Pacific Northwest." - Dr. James Karr, Aquatic Sciences and Biology, University of Washington
"An extraordinary and timely film." - Dr. Michael Skladany, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
"Fairly portrays the positions of salmon farmers, conservationists, First Nations, traditional fishermen and government officials. It is a thorough examination of the growth of the industry in British Columbia and Chile, and the effects of the industry on the environment and other economic sectors." - Jim Fulton, Executive Director, The David Suzuki Foundation
"A fantastic job of telling the entire industrial salmon farming story-from one end of the planet to the other, and from the producer all the way to the consumer. This is the film to show your friends and colleagues who still think that buying farmed fish is the best way to protect wild salmon or to feed the world. NET LOSS is a myth buster par excellence!" - Mark Ritchie, Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy
"A wonderfully relevant film...Net Loss provides an emotional and meaningful perspective on the noble fish-salmon-and our relationship to this being." - Eric Wynkoop, Western Culinary Institute
"Shines a much-needed light on the fact that not all salmon are created equal. The well-balanced film clearly shows that there are major issues associated with farming salmon. The film basically asks, what price, in terms of environmental and social costs, are we as consumers willing to pay for the flood of cheap farmed salmon?" - Bill Mott, Director, The Ocean Project
"This documentary states the case against farming salmon in large underwater cages or "net pens", and looks at the widespread economic and evironmental repercussions, which stretch all the way from Alaska to Chile. Net Loss is an indictment of mass consumption, powerfully illustrated by the destruction of a great Northwestern symbol-the wild Salmon." - Matt McNally, Willamette Week, Portland, Oregon
"Compelling...the evidence presented by those who have lived and loved salmon all their lives, when seen next to the trite reassurances of aquaculture advocates, speak volumes...The film's clarity and detail in coverage of such complex subject matter makes it ideal for a range of audiences...[Net Loss] adds a human face and context for understanding the global environmental, social, cultural and scientific dynamics that have led to 'the storm over salmon farming'." - Ben Bolton and Mike Skladany, Alternatives Journal
"The makers of [Net Loss] were careful to include the varying perspectives of salmon farmers, scientists, native North Americans and advocacy groups. The result is an objective documentary that should have broad appeal. One can frequently find farmed salmon in grocery stores selling for four or five dollars per pound. Net Loss makes one realize that the true cost of farmed salmon is much higher. This documentary is highly recommended for adult and high school audiences." - Todd Hannon, Stream Net Library, Columbia River Inter- Tribal Fish Commission, Portland, OR for Educational Media Reviews Online
"This timely film, combining lush photography, lively music, and an engaging narrative, lays out the issues in a way that is understandable and highly watchable." - APO's Observer and Fisheries
"True to its intent of presenting the issues of salmon farming and...objective in its representation of both sides, not telling me what to think, but rather what to think about...strong, well organized, pressing and passionate... covering more than the economic/environmental issues but cultural/social issues as well." - International Wildlife Film Festival
"[Net Loss] offers a visual and narrative cost/benefit analysis useful for those whose interests range from aquaculture to zoology...The facts, theories and processes of science are well illustrated, with examples of field investigation, data collection, analysis and synthesis presented with a view toward purposeful investigation: observations and data help make a case for the need to address the dangers that salmon farming poses to the marine environment and local coastal communities...a newcomer to the issue may be...drawn in by the film creators' ability to present the complexity of the controversy in a palatable way, inviting viewers to seek more information and draw their own conclusions. Recommended." - Science Books and Films
Awards
Honorable Mention for Environmental Issue Awareness, International Wildlife Film Festival
Hazel Wolf Environmental Film Festival
Planet in Focus, Toronto International Environmental Film Festival
L.A. Green Reel Festival
Bioneers Film Festival
Wild and Scenic Environmental Film Festival, Nevada City, CA
The Conscientious Projector, Bainbridge Island, WA
Santa Cruz Film Festival
Green Reel Film Festival
Vermont International Film Festival
Bronze Plaque, Columbus International Film & Video Festival
Renowned chef John Bishop leads viewers on an eye-opening and engaging journey into the billion-dollar battle to control global food production. Starting with a gourmet meal in his five-star restaurant, Bishop travels the world -- from farmer's fields to biotech laboratories to supermarket aisles -- on a personal quest to find out what our food choices are.
With a hearty appetite for food and information, chef Bishop explores the politics and ethics of food. He discovers that 70% of processed foods on supermarket shelves in North America contain genetically modified ingredients. The handful of biotech companies who control genetically modified seeds claim this is the only way to feed the world's growing population. But are these foods safe? Are there other, less risky ways to feed ourselves? Our chef finds answers to these compelling questions and more.
From North America to Great Britain to India and back, John Bishop shares fascinating conversations and mouth-watering feasts with farmers, such as Michael Ableman, scientists and activists, such as Vandana Shiva. We see the actual transfer of DNA from bacteria into canola plants, and meet Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser who is battling the giant Monsanto Corporation. We learn startling information about the milk we drink in North America and meet Indian farmers and activists fighting to keep traditional farming practices alive.
Deconstructing Supper is a ride every contemporary eater will want to take -- a thought-provoking and entertaining journey into the revolution in modern food production, and its effects on our lives.
Reviews
"A beautiful film that uplifted my spirit and brought me more in touch with my love for food...Thoroughly mindful and compassionate, this is not a film that makes enemies. It's a film that make sense." - John Robbins, author The Food Revolution, and Diet For A New America
"Deconstructing Supper is a fine film, important for every culinary resource library. With so many scientific and technological changes taking place in food production, I feel it is vital that both chefs and students and lovers of food in general be knowledgeable about the ingredients they use. Nobody should take lightly what is happening to our farm produce..." - Anne Willan, Founder & President, LaVarenne at The Greenbrier
"Colourful and engaging, with fine camera-work...This is a film for all those who might just be wondering what is happening to the foods they used to know and love." - Brewster Kneen, The Rams Horn
"The film takes Bishop on an around-the-world trip...What he finds is an industrialization process in the world's farming industry that is frighteningly reminiscent of such historical events as the communist farm collectives and the Irish potato famine...As scary as a lot of this sounds Deconstructing Supper is neither gloomy nor ideological...(O)rganic farmers in California, Saskatchewan and India show there are working alternatives." - Brian Gorman, TV Data
"What's a GMO? Chef John Bishop discovers that, thanks to Monsanto Corporation, food just ain't what it used to be. In his globe-trotting investigation, this conscientious chef also illustrates that, despite Monsanto's monkey-business, 'natural food' production remains both a feasible and pleasurable enterprise." - Prof. Timothy McGettigan, PhD, Department of Sociology, Colorado State University- Pueblo
"A fascinating, if disturbing, primer on the subject of genetically modified food. It manages to instruct without scolding, explore without preaching, and ultimately, should interest anybody who eats." - Toronto Star
"Superbly constructed...incredibly informative as well as entertaining...Allows the audience to come to their own conclusions with the facts from both sides of the food issue presented." - Neil Ritchie, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
"Deconstructing Supper tells a good story, and makes you wish you could afford organic produce more often." - The (Toronto) Globe and Mail
"Having a storyline places this film apart...In addition, there are some very good visuals...and dialogue which doesn't pull its punches." - Philip L. Bereano, University of Washington
"This illuminating film reminds us of the importance of knowing where our food comes from, and it shows us how the choices we make everyday about the food we eat are some of the most important decisions we make." - Alice Waters, Owner, Chez Panisse Restaurant
"The chemical industry's power over our food is a key message in this video. If you haven't heard the story of Percy Schmeiser's struggle with Monsanto, [Deconstructing Supper] is worth seeing just to hear him tell it." - Dana Jackson, The Land Stewardship Letter
Awards
Second Place in Category, EarthVision Environmental Film Festival
Prix Leonardo, Parma, Italy
MountainFilm in Telluride
Vermont International Film Festival
Hazel Wolf Environmental Film Festival
Bioneers Film Festival
EcoCinema, Rhodes, Greece
Marin Environmental Film Festival
The Green Festival, Washington DC
Chris Award, Columbus International Film & Video Festival
Examines the global marine fisheries crisis and the efforts to implement sustainable fishing practices.
"Many of the new changes that are happening in the oceans are a consequence of activities that people have always been engaged in. It's just a much greater rate and a faster scale. Nobody created these problems deliberately." - Dr. Jane Lubchenco, National Academy of Sciences
"Never before has a wake-up call from nature been so clear, never again will there be better opportunities to protect what remains of the ocean's living wealth." - Dr. Sylvia Earle, former Chief Scientist of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
Our oceans are not yet empty but the signs are not good. The seas have always been humanity's single largest source of protein, but for the first time in history this critical food supply is at risk in many areas. Despite an ever-intensifying fishing effort, the global catch appears to have reached its limit while the demand for seafood continues to grow.
According to the FAO, 15 of the world's 17 major ocean fisheries are already depleted or over-exploited. These trends are even more troubling when population growth is considered. The world population-now at six billion-will continue to grow by over 60 million people per year, with nearly half this growth in areas within 100 kilometers of a coastline. Over one billion people in Asia already depend on ocean fish for their entire supply of protein, as does 1 out of every 5 Africans. Although North America and Europe rely less on ocean-caught protein, much of the seafood consumed on both continents is imported from developing countries. The entire world shares an interest in restoring and maintaining this critical food supply.
EMPTY OCEANS, EMPTY NETS examines the full extent of the global fisheries crisis and the forces that continue to push many marine fish stocks toward commercial extinction. The program also documents some of the most promising and innovative work being done to restore fisheries and protect essential fish habitat. New market initiatives are examined that give consumers a powerful vote in deciding how our oceans are fished. Commentary is provided by fishermen and by many of the world's most respected marine and fisheries scientists.
Reviews
"If you knew nothing about fishing, this would be an awesome introduction. From Indonesian out-rigger canoes to Bering Sea factory trawlers, from cyanided reefs and dynamited fish in the western Pacific to tuna weirs in the Mediterranean, it's all here." - National Fisherman
"Empty Oceans is a stunning and substantive new documentary on the horrific impacts of current destructive fishing practices around the globe. The film takes its viewers on a journey that unravels the mysteries of declining fish populations around the globe. Hopefully, seeing this film will convince you that it's time for us all to take action to protect the world's oceans." - Ted Danson, President and Founder, American Oceans Campaign
"Empty Oceans, Empty Nets examines the disturbing decline of marine fisheries around the world...The good news is that fish populations can be restored and sustained through careful regulation of fishing. Consumers can also become more aware of which kinds of fish are best to buy, shunning those listed as commercially endangered." - Los Angeles Times
"54 minutes of film that will...(help you) reorder your priorities and your entrees." - San Francisco Chronicle
"Tells a cautionary tale about the overfishing of the world's oceans, but it also gives us hope for the future as well...the viewer is left with the realization that we can help." - Tri- Valley (CA) Herald
"There are many things concerned individuals can do. I'd start by watching "Empty Oceans, Empty Nets," a gripping new documentary about the state of the world's fisheries...As the saying goes, save a fish, save a fisherman. And if we save the oceans, we save ourselves." - The Providence Journal
"Empty Oceans, Empty Nets delivers a thorough summary of the global marine fisheries crisis and makes excellent use of ship-board videos, interviews and graphics... By the end of the film viewers will understand the problems of by-catch, juvenile (pre-reproductive) fish harvest, habitat destruction and problems posed by the increased mechanization of the fishing process.... The footage of sea-floor disturbance caused by bottom trawls is dramatic and something not commonly seen in other fisheries related videos. Empty Oceans, Empty Nets shows some thought provoking footage of fish farming operations and does a wonderful job of explaining the pros and cons of intensive fish culture. The film is certainly a wake-up call...I highly recommend this video to all public, school and college libraries as it is the best, most informative and well balanced fisheries video I have seen." - Educational Media Reviews Online, Barb Butler, Oregon Institute of Marine Biology
"Water, water everywhere and nary a fish in the drink. A scandalizing expose of the rampant destruction visited on global fisheries by sophisticated maritime technologies and free market 'logic.' " - Prof. Timothy McGettigan, PhD, Department of Sociology, Colorado State University- Pueblo
"The stunning visuals of fish in the oceans and the sometimes horrifying footage of catching those same fish, together with the factual information make this video a must have for all library environment collections." - School Library Journal
"Empty Oceans, Empty Nets is a video that challenges viewers to rethink the impact that their choice of fish for dinner has on the environment...presents beautiful scenes of the ocean habitat as it documents modern-day fishing practices...Empty Oceans, Empty Nets is appropriate for high school and college students. The video could easily be used in the classroom to increase general awareness of the global issues involving the fishing industry and its impact on science and society...This video highlights how informed consumers and citizens can make a difference in restoring and maintaining this critical food supply. Recommended." - Science Books and Films
Awards
CINE Golden Eagle
Best Public Affairs Documentary, Ekotopfilm, Bratislava
Bronze Plaque, Columbus International Film & Video Festival
Honorable Mention, EarthVision Environmental Film Festival
Vermont International Film Festival
United Nations Association Film Festival, Stanford
MountainFilm, Telluride
Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival
Environmental Film Festival in the Nation's Capital
Examines the causes of, and solutions to, severe famine conditions in Malawi.
The "Perfect Famine" is the kind of famine that happens when everything that can go wrong does go wrong, either because of natural disasters or because of the activities of humans.
That's what is happening in the southern African country of Malawi, where bad weather, poor governance, and profiteering have combined to create a desperate situation. It is at the epicenter of what may become a major famine in the south of the continent. Families are resorting to strategies such as abandoning villages, stealing crops, and eating next year's seed corn-yet Malawi is a green land that should be able to sustain itself. Although many have thought foreign aid would lift the world's poor out of absolute poverty, there is now a growing consensus that the policies of poor countries and ineffectual bureaucracies are major obstacles to sustainable development.
THE PERFECT FAMINE looks at the role of governance through one African example, and discusses the global issues at hand with development experts and economists.
With the support of the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN Habitat); the European Commission Directorate General for Development to promote better understanding of development issues; the Directorate General for the Environment; and the Royal Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
A hand-operated peanut-sheller makes a difference in the lives of villagers around the world.
PEANUTS shows a living example of the difference that one person, with good will and determination, can make in the lives of countless others.
When film technician Jock Brandis discovered cotton being grown in traditionally food-bearing fields in a village in southern Mali, he decided to do something about it.
He observed to villagers that growing cotton would rob their soil of nitrogen, and suggested they plant peanuts either around the cotton plants or in rotation with cotton. Peanuts have several advantages. They fix nitrogen in the soil; they are more profitable; and they're rich in protein. But the problem, they replied, is husking them by hand.
Jock promised he would return with a machine, but discovered that no small-scale machine exists. So he set about designing one that local people could build on the spot and fix themselves.
The film follows Jock and his set of fiberglass molds back to Mali, where he worked with local villagers to perfect and manufacture their own hand-operated peanut husker. Produced at a material cost of approximately $10, for concrete and steel, each machine is easily capable of husking 100 pounds of peanuts per hour.
Ibrahim Togola, the head of the Mali Folkecenter for Renewable Energy, sees the peanut-sheller as appropriate technology that villagers can master, and use to improve their own communities.
As word spreads about the invention, there are plans for thousands of the machines to be manufactured and used not only in Mali, but across the globe.
Reviews
"A great story, subtly showcasing the many skills that people need for life -- problem solving, determination and commitment, human relations, cultural understanding, engineering and manufacturing, economics, and environmental sensitivity while maintaining interest in a simple tale of two 'cities'. I have not yet found a viewer who did not sit glued to this story. It also shows the unappreciated fact that America engages in more than high profile military actions that so dominate the perception of other nations. It should be required viewing for high public office." - Tim Williams, Senior Research Scientist, College of Agricultural & Environmental Sciences, University of Georgia
"Smart, inspiring, and often humorous...An uplifting film about positive change in contemporary Africa, this is recommended for larger public libraries and African Studies collections." - Video Librarian
"The beauty of "Peanuts" is the power of the documentary genre: taking the camera to a hitherto unexplored part of the human experience and giving attention to a story that deserves to be shared...Harbury's film is a gentle, quiet and sincere effort that approaches its subject with respect and brilliantly pinpoints the universal elements in its most specialized of topics....At a time when the United States is spending billions of dollars to destroy countries with the goal of "liberating" them, the liberation that Brandis is giving to the villages in Mali (economic self-sufficiency, agricultural protection, healthy food) costs only $10 per peanut sheller. The irony of achieving more with less was never more clear. This film deserves to be seen by the powers in Washington and by foreign ministries and foreign aid organizations around the world -- a strong lesson can be found here." - Phil Hall, Film Threat
"In addition to the obvious uses in African studies and/or agriculture classes, this video could also be used to stimulate discussions on a variety of topics such as: developing countries, sustainability, health, energy, engineering, appropriate technology. Recommended." - Barb Bergman, Minnesota State University, Educational Media Reviews Online
"Jock Brandis...may have achieved "the holy grail of sustainable agriculture": a low-cost, easy-to-build, reliable peanut sheller that could serve the needs of an entire African village." - Wilmington Star- News
Awards
Best Documentary, Orinda Film Festival
Honorable Mention, EarthVision Environmental Film Festival
Visual Anthropology Film/Video Festival, American Anthropoligical Association Conference
Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival
Hazel Wolf Environmental Film Festival
The Chris Award, Columbus International Film & Video Festival
A model of community supported agriculture in the midst of suburban sprawl.
Fairview Gardens is an urban farm located in Goleta, California, right in the middle of some of the most expensive real estate in the U.S. Managed for the past two decades by visionary farmer/photographer/author, Michael Ableman, this 12-acre organic farm has become a model of sustainable food production and community involvement, as well as an inspiration for thousands of people all over the world.
While managing the farm, Ableman traveled around the world learning from the best examples of traditional agriculture. A talented professional photographer, his slides and observations -- carefully captured in BEYOND ORGANIC -- became the basis for two of his popular books From The Good Earth and On Good Land. At the same time he became an outspoken critic of large-scale commercial agriculture, with its reliance on vast inputs of fossil fuels, water, pesticides and other chemicals.
BEYOND ORGANIC tells the story of this amazing farm and its long battle to survive in the face of rapid suburban development. It explores the efforts of Ableman and his staff to diversify the farm, open it to educational tours for thousands of people -- especially schoolchildren -- and defend it against angry neighbors, hostile public officials and developers eager to re-zone the land for condominiums. It draws a sharp contrast between community supported agriculture and conventional chemical farming, and it calls on organic farmers to remember basic principles, including fair labor practices, as their farms grow in size and power.
BEYOND ORGANIC is a dramatic story with a happy ending. Other neighbors -- and eventually the entire Santa Barbara community -- rallied around Fairview Gardens and raised $800,000 to preserve it as a land trust, and as a source of inspiration, for future generations.
Reviews
"This video is an outstanding glimpse into how the increasingly rapid tempo of destruction of rural land dedicated to raising crops could be slowed, resulting in a diversity of healthful food for our citizens. Highly recommended." - Buzz Haughton, Shields Library, UC- Davis, MC Journal
"BEYOND ORGANIC is a great view, a wonderful video about a community growing healthy food, building good relationships and developing a vital social fabric for us all!" - John Jeavons, author of How To Grow More Vegetables, and founder of Ecology Action
"BEYOND ORGANIC is not only a dramatic and true story, on a subject of great importance, but it's also a beautiful film. (You can almost taste the peaches!)" - Donella Meadows, author of Limits To Growth
"The fascinating and inspiring story of Fairview Gardens, an organic farm that unites enriching food production with a sound and healthy social philosophy." - Timothy McGettigan, Professor of Sociology, University of Southern Colorado
"What a great piece of work! This timely film celebrates local, community-based farming, while offering solutions to the urgent challenges of family farms and urban agriculture. Beautiful cinematography and engaging storytelling -- a must see!" - Nina Simons, co-producer, Bioneers Conference
"Great video and example for other CSAs to follow." - Organically Speaking e- Newsletter
"I am really quite excited about offering this marvelous special to the Public Television viewers of North America." - Dick Hanratty, Director of PBS Plus
"A thought-provoking, visually stunning video. The quality of production is excellent, allowing the program to be entertaining while raising underlying questions for further discussion on topics such as urban sprawl and development, community and social interactions, organic farming, future directions for urban agriculture, and community-supported agriculture (CSA). The comparisons of the connections among land, culture, and community in the more traditional agriculture of many countries and the trend to megafarms in North America are particularly striking." - Best Science Films, Science Books and Films
"Beautiful cinematography and engaging storytelling -- a must see!" - Nina Simons, co-producer, Bioneers Conference
Awards
Best of Category, EarthVision Environmental Film & Video Festival
Vermont International Film Festival
Equinox Environmental Film Festival
Environmental Film Festival in the Nation's Capital
Olympia Environmental Film Festival
Hazel Wolf Environmental Film Festival
MountainFilm in Telluride
International Environmental Film Festival "Green Vision" in St. Petersburg
Bronze Plaque, Columbus International Film & Video Festival
The impact of climate change and monoculture on one of the world's staple food crops.
BIG SPUDS, LITTLE SPUDS takes a close look at the potato to examine the effects of climate change and monoculture on one of the world's staple food crops. With half the planet's population dependent on rice, wheat, potatoes, and corn, to what extent are pests and disease-often exacerbated by climate change-threatening world food security?
The people of the Andes in Peru have raised more than 5,000 varieties of potatoes. During the Green Revolution of the 1960s they were urged to adopt a handful of new high-yielding varieties, that proved to be highly vulnerable to the harsh mountain weather, and to pests and diseases. The new varieties also require massive inputs of chemicals and water.
In 1997 El Nino had a dramatic impact on the climate both in Peru, and Idaho, home of the US potato industry. In Peru, El Nino brought drought and killer frosts to the highlands: in Idaho, it brought persistent rains. With the wet weather came the blight that caused the Irish potato famine. Idaho's potato farmers were totally unprepared.
The film looks at traditional methods of potato farming where Andean families grow their own varieties, practice crop rotation, and utilize a minimum of inputs. In sharp contrast is the industrial method of production used in Idaho, and increasingly in Peru, where just a few high-yielding varieties are grown, where soil fertility decreases, pesticides lose their effectiveness, and campesinos wind up working as laborers on their own land.
But there is a new pride in the old varieties of potatoes. People are documenting the characteristics of different varieties in an attempt to preserve genetic diversity, and with it perhaps world food security.
Reviews
"Gives a reasoned explanation both of the problem and its possible solution through reintroduction of traditional potato varieties requiring less in the way of fertilizers and pesticides." - Buzz Haugton, Shields Library, UC- Davis, MC Journal
"Our scientists felt that the video gave a good overview of the importance of biological diversity and associated knowledge." - Christine Graves, International Potato Center, Peru
"Excellent...make(s) a compelling case that action is urgently needed to respond to global change, above all climate change and declining biodiversity. The message about the value of local knowledge comes through clearly...I strongly believe we will only have governments act when their citizenry is well enough informed and pressing for action...A significant contribution. It is important (it) be widely viewed." - Gordon Smith, Director of the Centre for Global Studies, University of Victoria
"The film successfully depicts the coping strategies for both the Peruvians and the Idahoans, placing the struggle of the individual farmers in the framework of larger global ecological, economic, and development issues...(S)uitable for use in classes on ecology, anthropology, globalization and agricultural development." - Alan Duben, Human Ecology
"How do I decide what to put in my compost bin?" "My compost stinks! What do I do?" "I want my pile to get hot. How big do I make it?"
This program teaches the science behind the solutions. Using a quiz show format to present common questions, it shows home composters learning how to provide the right conditions for composting without problems. The information is presented in an informal, entertaining way to make learning about composting fun!
Reviews
"Gives a detailed, yet easily understood description of the composting process and the balance between carbon-and nitrogen-rich materials. Illuminating camera shots introduce the multitude of decomposers that make up a compost pile." Resource Recycling
"Provides good scientific explanations in an informal but effective way...The video positively portrays an activity well within the reach of anyone interested...useful for late elementary, high school, and undergraduate students as well as adults. It would be a great addition to public library collections...Highly recommended."
Sharon C. Murphy, SUNY Buffalo, MC Journal
"A good addition for library collections, and useful to foster Earth Day projects across the curriculum." School Library Journal
Over the generations the farmers of the village of Gaho in southern Ethiopia have developed unique farming techniques that enable them successfully to grow crops in their arid environment.
The preservation and enhancement of their soil is the villagers' most important priority. They accomplish this through constant weeding and composting. To trap water and prevent erosion they build stone terraces on hilly terrain, and earth embankments on level ground. Amongst the crops they grow successfully in this land of undependable rainfall are sorghum, sunflower, rapeseed, coffee, cassava, and yam.
Farm Africa, an NGO promoting sustainable agriculture, has enabled the farmers of Gaho to experiment with new sorghum varieties resistant to pests, and requiring less moisture. It has also enabled Gaho's women to purchase livestock to be used for meat and sold in the region for supplemental income.
Although each farmer has his own plot of land, cultivation and maintenance are communal endeavors. A common area is tilled and planted, and the yield of this area is stored for distribution during times of scarcity.
Review
"THE FARMERS OF GAHO demonstrates that with careful attention to sustainable agricultural development and thoughtful foreign assistance designed to enhance indigenous people's ability to care for themselves, the outlook for farmers in ecologically sensitive areas of the Third World need not be bleak. Highly recommended." - Buzz Haughton, Shields Library, University of California, Davis, MC Journal
Hard-pressed farmers in the southeast US and in Mozambique find co-ops work.
Willie Head, Jr. is struggling to hold on to his farm-70 acres in southeast Georgia. Willie is one of the remaining 18,000 African Americans who are losing their land at the rate of a thousand acres a day.
Teresa Massango, a farmer in Mozambique in Southeast Africa, is among the 80 percent of Mozambicans who depend on their land to feed themselves. They've faced war and famine, and are now threatened by investors wanting to profit from Mozambique's cheap land and labor.
CULTIVATING OPPORTUNITY tells the inspiring story of how poor communities in Mozambique and the United States are creating opportunities to better their lives. Their work is a road map to ending hunger and poverty, a journey that begins within the communities themselves.
In CULTIVATING OPPORTUNITY, communities in vastly different parts of the world demonstrate surprising similarities in the self-help solutions they champion to fight poverty. The video shows how these communities are creating the opportunities they need. Willie says, "I don't care what profession you're in; to just work hard doesn't do it. To just be committed doesn't do it. The opportunity must be there..."
Reviews
"Cutting back and forth between the two states, this program mixes scenes of farming with comments from agriculture experts and self-reliant growers, who are determined to get a fair price for their products as well as easier access to loans. An interesting lesson in economics for classroom and public-library viewing." - Booklist
"Effective...introduction to cooperatives, especially from a sociological perspective." - Rachel Lohafer, MC Journal
"The cooperative ideal has worked well for two widely geographically separated groups of people with remarkably similar problems. This video is highly recommended for...agricultural economics and comparative farming systems." - Buzz Haughton, UC Davis
The effects of the biotechnology revolution on farmers and consumers.
Technology has quietly slipped into the food chain, shifting genes from one life form to another. Multi-national chemical companies have created genetically altered potatoes, corn, soybeans, and canola-that variously are toxic to pests, herbicide tolerant, and dependent on chemical inputs.
The biotechnology industry claims that its new foods have great potential for everyone, including the world's hungry. But skepticism abounds as to whether the hungry, or indeed the family farmer, or even the consumer, will derive substantial benefit from this high-tech, heavily capitalized new mode of production.
Reviews
"A big question is the tight relationship between the use of genetically altered crop seeds and the corporations that have developed them... Monsanto requires that farmers who grow them sign contracts restricting how they may dispose of excess production and requiring that unused seeds (be) return(ed) to the company...This film strives to present both sides of this sensitive issue in a careful and reasoned way. Highly recommended." - Buzz Haughton, Shields Library, UC- Davis MC Journal
"Given its cautionary bent, this timely, well-shot program is sure to provoke discussion." - Booklist
"A superb introduction...for a high school or college class; for a public teach-in or workshop about the topic; and for educating legislators." - The Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener
"An enlightening look at the evolution of transgenic food and the issues surrounding its production and consumption." - Cathy Schaeff, PhD, Biology Department, American University
Award
Honorable Mention, Columbus International Film & Video Festival
Permaculture helps people turn wastelands into food forests.
BILzL MOLLISON is a practical visionary. For three decades he has traveled the globe spreading the word about permaculture, the method of sustainable agriculture that he devised. Permaculture weaves together microclimate, annual and perennial plants, animals, soils, water management and human needs into intricately connected productive communities. Mollison has proved that even in the most difficult conditions permaculture empowers people to turn wastelands into food forests.
GLOBAL GARDENER is a series of four half-hour programs. Each episode looks at examples in different bioregions:
IN THE TROPICS - Mollison introduces the basic principles, and shows results in Australia, India, and Zimbabwe.
ARID LANDS - Reversing desertification in Arizona, Botswana and Australia.
COOL CLIMATES - Europe, Tasmania, and the San Juan Islands in Washington State.
URBAN - New York City and Harare, Zimbabwe.
Reviews
"(Permaculture) involves caring for the whole system of earth and spaces, devising model systems with much design drawn from nature, with the end result being a system that's ecologically sound and economically profitable...Mollison provides practical and motivating information for just about anyone interested in gardening, sustainable lifestyles, and similar topics...Recommended." - Rachel Lohafer, Instructional Technology Center Media Library, Iowa State University, MC Journal
"A lively and informative two hour video that will be greatly appreciated by gardeners, farmers, horticulturists, and agriculturists." - Midwest Book Review
"Highly recommended." - Video Rating Guide for Libraries
Award
Silver Apple, National Educational Film & Video Festival
Classroom composting engages students in inquiry-based science.
This video provides a fascinating introduction to composting as a means of engaging students in inquiry-based science that is meaningful to them and to their communities.
High school students come alive as they observe the "rot riot" of invertebrates and microorganisms that inhabit a compost pile. A centipede cleaning its antennae, a pseudoscorpion searching for microscopic prey - these and a multitude of other organisms are shown in the process of making compost.
Chemistry and physics enter the picture too. Taking into account what they know about oxygen, moisture, carbon, and nitrogen needs for successful composting, students design effective compost systems for use in their classroom. They carefully record compost temperatures, and chart the intricate process of decomposition. Best of all the students and their community see the results of their efforts as they turn a vacant lot into an urban oasis.
Reviews
"Buy or rent this video to show to your class or garden club...the cohesive organization...the superb close-up cinematography of primary, secondary and tertiary decomposers, and the excitement of the high school kids who are shown working with compost make it worth (the price). I highly recommend this video for science classes." - The Maine Organic Farmer and Gardener
"Well-produced and inspirational" - Video Librarian
"Introduces in a classroom setting the scientific component of composting. The video combines experimenting, observing, recording data and interpreting results with a description of the composting process." - Resource Recycling
Award
Honorable Mention, Columbus International Film & Video Festival
The history and advantages of hemp as an industrial fiber.
This surprising DVD explains the environmental interest in the non-drug variety of hemp as a versatile industrial fiber, and documents the history of its prohibition.
Backed by years of worldwide research, BILLION DOLLAR CROP exposes the political and industrial manipulations, which outlawed one of the most valued plants in history. Hemp once provided the paper on which US banknotes were printed, the cloth for the original Levi jeans, as well as the sails and rigging of ships. During World War II it was of such strategic importance that the US Government encouraged farmers to convert to hemp cultivation.
BILLION DOLLAR CROP shows how the recently developed, non-drug variety of hemp is being researched and cultivated internationally because of the plant's versatile qualities and environmental friendliness. This program takes the audience on a world tour from Australia to the United Kingdom, and from The Netherlands to France and the US. It illustrates how hemp is being cultivated as an industrial fiber for use as an alternative to wood for paper production, to cotton for clothes, and to plywood for construction. We all benefit, especially our forests and topsoil.
Reviews
"As brilliant and hard-hitting a piece of TV journalism as I've ever seen...provides irrefutable evidence that this versatile, easily grown, environmentally friendly crop could provide thousands of jobs, billions of dollars in export and major reductions in our present-day environmental destruction." - Eden Institute
"Once again, our muddle-headed prejudices are costing us." - SMH The Guide
Explores sustainable agriculture and the contrast between chemical and organic farming.
An emotionally charged documentary about the use and misuse of technology on the American farm. In less than fifty years the face of agriculture has been utterly transformed by synthetic chemicals which have had a serious impact on the environment and on the health of farm families. This film tells the story of two farmers, different in all details, yet united by their common goal of producing healthy food.
One of the farmers is the father of the filmmaker. Herbert Smith was a hero of his age: dedicated, innovative, a champion of the new miracle sprays of the 50s. His fate is the heart of this film. The other, Fred Kirschenmann of North Dakota, is a hero for our age. Faced with a shattered economy and the devastating environmental effects of conventional chemical farming, Fred steered his land through the transition to organic farming. Twenty years later, the Kirschenmann farm is a thriving testament to ingenuity, hard work, and a reverent understanding of nature.
Fred proves that sustainable agriculture is a viable alternative on any sized farm and that we can bring health and beauty back to the Garden.
Reviews
"For the past 25 years I have searched high and low for a film that captures all of the elements of the crisis and promise of agriculture and now I have found it...it is one of the most respectful and honest looks at the current situation that many farmers find themselves in, and the positive ways that some...are recreating the future." - Mark Ritchie, Executive Director, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
"Deeply sympathetic to all farmers and to rural culture. It encompasses the issues of farm history, industry and ecology and can be viewed as both a cautionary tale and a powerful story of hope." - Making a Difference
"Kirschenmann is unequivocal in his view of the agricultural world: either you approach a farm as a machine, assuming nature is flawed and in need of a bio-agricultural shot in the arm (a losing battle in the long run), or you approach a farm as a garden and nature as a partner." - Gary Handman, Video Librarian
Awards
Sundance Film Festival
Earthwatch Film Award
CINE Golden Eagle
The Chris Award, Columbus International Film & Video Festival
Silver Spire, San Francisco International Film Festival
Silver Plaque, Chicago International Film Festival
Best Environmental Program, MountainFilm in Telluride
First Place, Documentary, BACA/Brooklyn Arts Council
Best Documentary, Canyonlands Film and Video Festival
Best Doumentary, Crested Butte Reel Fest
Best Documentary, Hope and Dreams Film Festival
Best Director: Minnesota Film & Video Expo
Bronze TELLY Award
Bronze Apple, National Educational Media Network Competition
Bronze Award, CINDY Competition
Bronze Award, WorldFest Houston
Third Place Documentary, Central Florida Film & Video Festival
Finalist, USA Film Festival
Finalist, Harry Chapin Media Awards
Finalist, Great Plains Film Festival
Human Rights Film Festival, Calgary
Environmental Film Festival in the Nation's Capital
Athens Film Festival
Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema
Breckenridge Festival of Film
Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival
Hawaii International Film Festival
Sinking Creek Film and Video
International Environmental Film Festival, Pretoria
Northwest Documentary Film Festival
Festival Internacional de Cinema da Figueira da Foz (Portugal)
This fast-paced and humorous video shows how worms can be used by everyone to reduce garbage. A youthful host first explains the problems of garbage production and disposal, and then the basics of recycling and composting. She introduces the concept of the worm bin, and shows us how to build and operate a small classroom-size vermicomposter. Finally, we visit a large outdoor worm bin in use at a townhouse complex and also a 38-foot bin at a government building cafeteria that composts over nine tons of material a year.
Reviews
"Cleverly presented, timely in its environmental message, and very kid-friendly, this is highly recommended." - Video Librarian
"Not just a kids video...Recycling with Worms addresses, step-by-step, the process of composting, discusses current and future environmental issues, and displays the role youth and adults can play in the recycling process...A fun, interesting and educational video...recommended." - Belinda L. Robinson-Jones, Ohio University, MC Journal
"A must-see for anyone interested in composting." - Juliana Kangi, Solid Waste Management Program of San Francisco
Award
Honorable Mention, Columbus International Film & Video Festival
Fusion of modern science with women's knowledge in India.
Activist and ecologist Vandana Shiva is the leader of a people's movement in India that opposes "reductionist Western science". She argues that the failure of the Green Revolution was due to the fact that women's knowledge of traditional seed varieties was ignored. Shiva is devoting her scientific knowledge to proving that local farming methods, which recognize diversity and complexity in their polycultures, are vital to the survival of the Indian ecosystem. Millions of women, with their managerial, economic and scientific skills, are the backbone of India's rural economy.
The film also looks at the work of Dr. Sharadini Dahanukar who has set out to prove that Ayurvedic medicine, which relies heavily on women's knowledge of plants and herbs, has scientific validity.
Finally the film looks at silk technology from the ultra-modern biotech laboratories where the cocoons are bred, through the ancient process of silk reeling, to the bustling auction halls. Prabha Shekar argues that, if done sensitively, the fusion of modern science with indigenous knowledge can provide a powerful way forward for poor communities.
Review
" Explores the lives of female scientists in India and their choices between adopting Western scientific practices and maintaining indigenous practices in science and medicine...well narrated...well organized. Highly Recommended." - Belinda L. Robinson-Jones, Ohio University, Zanesville, MC Journal
A documentary from India about the effects of the highly touted Green Revolution there. Credited with ensuring that India is no longer a developing countries "basket-case", the Green Revolution is widely regarded as one of the most successful development strategies of the 20th century. But this film reveals that in India it has helped to create a new serf class and the dramatic yields of the early years have fallen away in the wake of pesticide poisoning and the short-lived miracle wheat strains.
Review
"A harrowing indictment of America's post- World War II Green Revolution...the First World's largesse has only helped reinforce the power of the ancient rich over the ancient poor." - Toronto Star
Award
Joint First Prize, WWF- UK Award for Best National Documentary and Current Affairs Programming, British Environment and Media Awards
John Jeavons demonstrates biointensive agriculture as a way to alleviate world hunger.
Recognizing the impracticality of the "Green Revolution" for many of the world's starving peoples, John Jeavons and his co-workers at Common Ground have spent the last 26 years doing pioneering research to improve the yield of home gardens. He calls his technique biointensive agriculture. His goal is to produce the maximum amount of food from a small plot using the minimum amount of energy inputs and water. The results have been spectacular and offer real hope for solving at least part of the world hunger problem. There are biointensive projects underway in many developing countries, including Mexico where gardens are having a noticeable impact on the health of villagers in Tula.
Reviews
"Jeavons is...probably 10 to 15 years ahead of his time, but his time is coming...My guess is that we're going to see a lot of public research spent on things John Jeavons has been doing by himself." - Bob Bergland, former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture.
"I strongly recommend CIRCLE OF PLENTY, not only because of the quality of the video and the subject content, but because it shows a workable solution to a major problem." - Journal of College Science Teaching
"The excitement of an individual's improved self-sufficiency and its implications for the Third World are captured." - Booklist
"CIRCLE OF PLENTY reminds us of the need to think small and local in our research and development projects." - G. Edward Schuh, Director, Agriculture and Rural Development, The World Bank
Awards
CINE Golden Eagle
Silver Plaque, Chicago Intl. Film Festival
Silver Medal, John Muir Medical Film Festival
Certificate of Merit, Religious Broadcasting Commission
Directed by Robert Lang
Genetic diversity in the food supply.
A concise explanation of the importance of genetic diversity to the world food supply. In third world countries indigenous varieties of food crops are rapidly disappearing from genetically rich areas, replaced by seeds produced by multinational chemical companies, seeds now bred to be dependent on their agrichemicals. The future of our food supply depends on our ability to conserve genetic resources and redirect the goals of today's plant breeding.
Review
"From rugged Turkish hillsides to colorful Peruvian markets, the diversity of fruits and vegetables from which modern produce is derived is savored by an appreciative camera... Ambient music enhances the smooth, informed narration...." - Booklist
Awards
Best of Category, Birmingham International Film Festival
Silver Apple, National Educational Film & Video Festival
Masanobu Fukuoka's ("The One Straw Revolution") unique approach to agricultural problems.
"The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings," Masanobu Fukuoka writes in his book "The One Straw Revolution." He has spent 30 years perfecting his agricultural techniques on his fertile farm in southern Japan. Fukuoka says that his approach to agricultural problems always starts with the question, "How about not doing such and such?" in contrast to most agricultural thinking which presupposes that we can improve on nature.
Mr. Fukuoka has decided not to plow, not to grow rice in flooded fields, and not to use machinery to sow or harvest. What he does do on his farm is documented in this unique record of a full year of overlapping crops.
Reviews
"A handsome film...free of heavy-handed ideology...can stir us all to take a closer look at the future of American agriculture." - Editor's Choice, Science Books & Films
"Excellent presentation of natural farming methods...all nicely blended with the thoughtful philosophy of this farmer." - EFLA's Evaluations
Portrait of Alan Chadwick, inventor of the Biodynamic French Intensive Method of gardening.
The late Alan Chadwick, actor, master gardener, and inventor of the "Biodynamic French Intensive Method" spent 50 years in the garden -- digging, planting and watching.
Chadwick's method of gardening in raised beds produces an amazing amount of food in very little space, and uses few resources. Over 50 countries are developing garden projects based on his technique.
But to Chadwick there is more to gardening than growing food. It can nourish your soul as well.
A beautiful portrait of a dynamic human being, it was photographed at Chadwick's gardens in Virginia, Boulder Creek and Bolinas, California. It also features John Jeavons and Dr. Paul Lee, who discuss Chadwick's vitally important contribution to small-scale agriculture in a hungry world.
Reviews
"The eloquence of his thought and diction make Chadwick an electrifying proponent of life on a human scale, of moral vision, and personal dignity. An intriguing program for public and college library audiences." - Booklist
"Artistic, yet informative -- important ideas are conveyed simply and clearly. Captures the spirit and intensity of a very unique man. Technical quality good to very good." - EFLA Evaluations
"He evidently was one of those rare individuals whose vision is clearer, more perceptive than most. Students talk about what a privilege it was to work with and for him: the interviews make quite clear why this was. The man is inspiring." - John Voorhees, Television Critic, The Seattle Times
Awards
Red Ribbon, American Film Festival
Golden Eye Award, Assn for Media Educators in Religion Film Festival
Merit Award, Athens Video Festival
Certificate of Merit, North American Consumer Film Festival
National Association for Environmental Education Film Festival
Frances Moore Lappe shows how to practice vegetarianism and address world hunger.
There is tremendous waste of edible protein involved in producing America's meat-centered diet, while much of the world goes hungry.
Based on the best-selling book DIET FOR A SMALL PLANET, the film features the author Frances Moore Lappe, and Ellen Buchman Ewald, author of RECIPES FOR A SMALL PLANET. With nutritionist/biochemist Dr. Kendall King they explore three main topics:
1. The Nutrition of Protein - What is protein? Why do we need it? How can we get it?
2. The Ecological Cost of Meat Protein - Feedlots as protein factories in reverse. Europe and the US as protein drains.
3. Cooking with Complementary Proteins - Preparation of dishes that exemplify the three main combinations of non-meat foods which produce high quality protein.
Reviews
"The only film we know that encourages Americans to consume more vegetables and less meat...It would be an excellent stimulus for discussion in college courses or at professional meetings. At the high school level, it would be useful in conjunction with consumer education, biology, and health courses." - Nutrition Action
"A timely discussion of world hunger, with substantial information on good nutrition." - The Science Teacher
"Perhaps its major statement is made by showing that 18 million pounds of vegetable protein are wasted in the US yearly through conversion to meat...This deficit of 18 million pounds is approximately that required by the Third World." - Journal of Nutrition Education.