This film about agricultural advances in the USSR was meant to serve as a teaching aid. Featuring documentary footage and animation.
Souvent l’hiver se mutine
The drought in the American West is predicted to be the worst in 1,000 years. Join five Academy Award-winning filmmakers as they explore the environmental crisis of our time and how to fix it before it's too late.
King Corn is a fun and crusading journey into the digestive tract of our fast food nation where one ultra-industrial, pesticide-laden, heavily-subsidized commodity dominates the food pyramid from top to bottom – corn. Fueled by curiosity and a dash of naiveté, two college buddies return to their ancestral home of Greene, Iowa to figure out how a modest kernel conquered America. With the help of some real farmers, oodles of fertilizer and government aide, and some genetically modified seeds, the friends manage to grow one acre of corn. Along the way, they unlock the hilarious absurdities and scary but hidden truths about America’s modern food system in this engrossing and eye-opening documentary.
Brazil is one of the most dangerous countries for environmentalists. The rural community of Belisário holds the country's second largest bauxite reserve, right below one of the most bio-diverse areas in the world: the Atlantic Forest. The small community was shaken when the beloved Gilberto, a Franciscan Friar, received a death threat followed by the lines: "you've been talking against mining way too much". PT: O Brasil é um dos países mais perigosos do mundo para defensores do meio ambiente. Em Minas Gerais, a comunidade rural de Belisário abriga a segunda maior reserva de bauxita do país, em uma das áreas de maior biodiversidade do mundo: a Mata Atlântica. A tranquilidade do pequeno vilarejo foi abalada quando Frei Gilberto, um franciscano que dedica sua vida à preservação da natureza, recebeu uma ameaça de morte com o seguinte aviso: "você tem falado demais contra a mineração".
Documentary filmmaker Robert Kenner examines how mammoth corporations have taken over all aspects of the food chain in the United States, from the farms where our food is grown to the chain restaurants and supermarkets where it's sold. Narrated by author and activist Eric Schlosser, the film features interviews with average Americans about their dietary habits, commentary from food experts like Michael Pollan and unsettling footage shot inside large-scale animal processing plants.
Les Champs de la colère
Documentary short subject preserved by the Academy Film Archive, from the Marshall Plan Collection, in 2003.
Milk is Big Business. Behind the innocent appearances of the white stuff lies a multi-billion euro industry, which perhaps isn't so innocent…
A film record of M.E.T.E.I. (Medical Expedition to Easter Island), one of the most unusual scientific enquiries ever launched, headed by a McGill University research team. While the film is concerned mainly with the physical condition of Easter Islanders, it also provides glimpses of island activities, a village wedding, and the famous long-faced stone sculptures.
Un jour en Italie
A Nazi propaganda film about the lead up to World War II and Germany's success on the Western Front. Utilizes newsreel footage of battles and fell into disfavour with propaganda minister Goebbels because of it's lack of emphasis on Adolf Hitler.
In barely a century, French peasants have seen their world profoundly turned upside down. While they once made up the vast majority of the country, today they are only a tiny minority and are faced with an immense challenge: to continue to feed France. From the figure of the simple tenant farmer described by Emile Guillaumin at the beginning of the 20th century to the heavy toll paid by peasants during the Great War, from the beginnings of mechanization in the inter-war period to the ambivalent figure of the peasant under the Occupation, From the unbridled race to industrialization in post-war France to the realization that it is now necessary to rethink the agricultural model and invent the agriculture of tomorrow, the film looks back at the long march of French peasants.
How did the willful daughter of a Himalayan forest conservator become Monsanto’s worst nightmare? The Seeds of Vandana Shiva tells the remarkable life story of Gandhian eco-activist Dr. Vandana Shiva, how she stood up to the corporate Goliaths of industrial agriculture, rose to prominence in the regenerative food movement, and inspired an international crusade for change.
Jean-Luc Godard brings his firebrand political cinema to the UK, exploring the revolutionary signals in late '60s British society. Constructed as a montage of various disconnected political acts (in line with Godard's then appropriation of Soviet director Dziga Vertov's agitprop techniques), it combines a diverse range of footage, from students discussing The Beatles to the production line at the MG factory in Oxfordshire, burnished with onscreen political sloganeering.
"...a charming depiction of life as I knew it with my grandparents in my own village..." Clara Caleo Green, Cinema Italia UK "The sum of the individual fates and life choices paints a picture, the validity of which extends far beyond this village." Joachim Manzin, Black Box This documentary records the thoughtful and emotional confrontation with time, change, loss and hope related by the members of a small community in the idyllic Ligurian countryside who are dealing with a rapidly changing agricultural industry, transformed by globalisation and technological advances and an increasing number of foreigners buying the empty houses in their village. Forgoing the use of music and voice over, the film lets Aracà's inhabitants tell their own stories and allows the audience to dive into the rich soundscape of the ligurian alpine countryside.
The plight of small-scale farmers in Africa and Asia forced off their land by an unprecedented corporate land grab. If they refuse they are subject to horrific violence, which has led to women miscarrying and deaths. Exploring the personal stories of those affected, this documentary gives a voice to threatened subsistence farmers throughout the developing world. If your livelihood was ripped away from you, how would you cope?
Nepřítel v týlu
This documentary takes a piercing investigative look at the economic, political and ecological implications of the worldwide disappearance of the honeybee. The film examines our current agricultural landscape and celebrates the ancient and sacred connection between man and the honeybee. The story highlights the positive changes that have resulted due to the tragic phenomenon known as "Colony Collapse Disorder." To empower the audience, the documentary provides viewers with tangible solutions they can apply to their everyday lives. Vanishing of the Bees unfolds as a dramatic tale of science and mystery, illuminating this extraordinary crisis and its greater meaning about the relationship between humankind and Mother Earth. The bees have a message - but will we listen?
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.