Exposing the dark underbelly of modern animal agriculture through drones, hidden & handheld cameras, the feature-length film explores the morality and validity of our dominion over the animal kingdom.
The story of the children who work 12-14 hour days in the fields without the protection of child labor laws. These children are not toiling in the fields in some far away land. They are working in America.
This Emmy award-winning documentary chronicles a vanishing piece of Americana: the last remaining agricultural encampment fair in the country, and the families who spend months preparing for this unique rural phenomenon.
A fascinating look at how American agricultural policy and food culture developed in the 20th century, and how the California food movement rebelled against big agribusiness to launch the local organic food movement.
Milk is Big Business. Behind the innocent appearances of the white stuff lies a multi-billion euro industry, which perhaps isn't so innocent…
Facing seizure of their own lands, two families found themselves farming together on the same field, hoping to get through just another rice-farming season like every year. But no matter how much the world is evolving, how much the country is going through economic, political and social changes, they still cannot grasp that ideology of happiness.
A documentary about Swiss mountain folk.
When the Cows Come Home introduces audiences to Tilly and Maggie, a pair of cows that musician, journalist, artist and cow whisperer, Andrew Johnstone has befriended and subsequently saved from slaughter. The garrulous herdsman is enthusiastic to expound his views on animal husbandry, bovine communication and the vagaries of life in general, before the film walks us back through the events that have shaped the singular farmer-philosopher. From personal family tragedy to warring with Catholic school authorities, innovating in Hamilton’s nascent music scene to creating guerrilla art installations; Johnstone’s life has had a truly idiosyncratic trajectory. Mental health issues may have seen him retreat to life on the farm, but the film makes clear its subject’s restless inquisitiveness is far from being put out to pasture.
Every year, a Kurdish family leaves Gaziantep (Anatolia) to work on the land near Ankara. This thankless life of seasonal labor turns upside down when the eldest son falls in love.
As the global economics of dairy farming has winnowed out most small and medium-sized dairies, the surviving farmers confront pressures to intensify production, even as they find that getting bigger presents new problems.
The personal story of a young woman in her early 20's who escapes societies expectations and becomes a sheepherder for a summer season.
Ferial has lived in La Dauphine, an old Provençal countryside located on the foothills of the Alps, with Philippe and their three sons for over 20 years. Daughter of a German woman and a Palestinian man, born in Jordan, Ferial sees in this place where she lives today the realization of a strange dream she had when she was still living in Jordan with her parents many years ago. In this dream, Ferial found herself isolated on a small island lost in the middle of the ocean. On this island, there was a blue tree on which three blue birds were perched. She never forgot this dream.
How safe is the future of the world’s food? This documentary explores a growing crisis in world agriculture. Plant breeding has created today’s crops, which are high yielding but vulnerable to disease and insects. To keep crops healthy, breeders tap all the genetic diversity of the world’s food plants. But that rich resource is quickly being wiped out. (NFB)
This short film serves as a cautionary tale to farmers who recklessly cut down trees on their land. When prairie farmers engaged in this practice to facilitate plowing, they discovered that the trees had served as windbreaks protecting top soil from erosion. The Dominion Department of Agriculture's experimental station at Indian Head, Saskatchewan, cultivated acres of young trees for distribution to farmers.
In this short documentary from the Canada Vignettes series, a Saskatchewan grain elevator is moved across the snow-covered prairie to a new home after nearly a half-century of use. The film follows the lifting and transporting of the 9-storey, 200-ton structure, and examines the feelings of the people as they witness the final passing of their town's one and only grain elevator.
This documentary chronicles agricultural resistance and the fight for food sovereignty in Burkina Faso – a small, landlocked country in West Africa. Showcasing activist farmers, students, artists and leaders in the local Slow Food movement, the film looks at how the Burkinabé people are reclaiming their land and defending their traditions against the encroachment of corporate agribusiness. From women gaining economic independence by selling artisanal “dolo” beer, to youth marching in the streets against companies like Monsanto, to hip-hop musicians setting up their own farms and reviving the revolutionary spirit of Thomas Sankara through their music, Burkinabè Bounty shows the creative tactics people are using to take back control of their food, seeds, and future.
As the international consumption of quinoa rises. The Mother Grain looks at how this increasing demand is affecting quinoa farmers. Bear Witness Pictures traveled to the Bolivian quinoa-growing communities surrounding the world's largest salt flat, the Salar de Uyuni, witnessing their lives first-hand to tell the story of quinoa from the perspective of the farmers themselves.