Filmmaker and novice farmer John Chester chronicles the eight-year quest he and Molly Chester went on when they traded city living for 200 acres of barren farmland in the foothills of Ventura County and a dream to harvest in harmony with nature. Through dogged perseverance and embracing the opportunity provided by nature's conflicts, the Chester's unlock and uncover a biodiverse design for living that exists far beyond their farm, its seasons, and...

This film follows a group of small farmers with big ideas who fight to start a cooperative to sell their grass-fed beef and are almost undone by a broken food system and their own naiveté. In New York State a farm is lost every 3 days and the Coop’s 2-year struggle affords an intimate perspective on a national problem: is it possible for local food and small farms to compete with an industrialized food system. At stake for many are their farms,...

This film introduces a diverse cast of extraordinary characters who are challenging the paradigm of our broken food system. It is a fun, fast-paced journey through the local Good Food Movement that's taking root in the San Francisco Bay Area, across the nation, and around the world. Introducing a diverse cast of extraordinary and eccentric characters who are challenging the paradigm of our broken food system, Edible City digs into their unique perspectives...

Tulare, The Phantom Lake explores the landscape of what was once the largest lake in America west of the Mississippi River, a lake that disappeared by the year 1900 due to water diversion and land reclamation for agriculture. The Tulare region in California's Central Valley is home to the most productive agricultural region the world has ever known.. The same landscape also harbors less than five percent of the original natural landscape and the poorest...

Water is essential for food security and livelihood, especially for the millions of rural poor who rely on agriculture. AGHBALOU combines a local story of struggle with a global call to action against the growing challenge of sustaining water supplies in the face of an increasingly hostile climate...Half of Morocco’s population is employed in agriculture and therefore dependent upon groundwater for both food and employment. The Todgha Valley in...

This feature-length documentary pedals alongside a group of small farmers from Brazil who bicycle over 6,000 miles across the South American continent. They use the year of travel to exchange natural seeds, songs, and ideas about new ways of relating to the land. Moving stories from landless peasants, indigenous communities, and small farmers inform the travelers and viewers, expanding their understanding of the struggle to survive in the face of...

The Emmy Award-winning Troubled Waters: A Mississippi River Story tells the story of the unintended yet severe consequences of farming along the Mississippi, and the efforts being taken to reverse this damage. America’s heartland boasts some of the world’s most productive farmland, but this bounty has come with a price. Excess crop fertilizers are contaminating the nation’s rivers, lakes and aquifers, while at the same time precious soil is...

At the far-flung edge of Canada’s boreal forest, outside the tiny sub-Arctic town of Dawson City, Yukon, a handful of unlikely farmers are growing everything from snow-covered Brussels sprouts to apples. These modern-day agrarians have carved out small patches of fertile soil in an otherwise unforgiving expanse of isolated wilderness to make a living and a life. Over the course of a year, Dawson filmmaker David Curtis follows these resilient, unassuming...

What’s it like to live without running water? In Peru’s sprawling capital, Lima, this is the everyday reality for 1.5 million children and adults, forced to pay up to a week’s salary for just one day’s water. And the problem isn’t confined to the capital, across the country, the shortage of water is putting lives in danger and provoking conflict, as it displaces communities and threatens their agricultural livelihoods...Climate change is...

Seen through the eyes of small, midsize and large Mexican maize producers, SUNU knits together different stories from a threatened rural world. This film documents how people realize their determination to stay free, to work the land and cultivate their seeds, to be true to their cultures and forms of spirituality, all in a modern world where corn is being threatened at the center of its origin: Mexico.