We've come on board again in 2011 as a Community Sponsor of the Vancouver International Film Festival which is going on now until October 14th! The way these sponsorships work is that we help promote the festival in general and then we choose a film that we're especially excited about and we share that excitement with you.
As usual there are hundreds of incredible films to choose from, and this year while looking through them there was one that really stuck out as being particularly awesome. It's called To Make A Farm and it's a documentary by Steve Suderman about a movement of young Canadians without farming backgrounds taking up the challenging profession of small-scale organic farming. It follows the lives of five such people through their first seasons on the land, as the joys and disappointments of bringing life from the earth become a quiet manifesto for social change. It's a hopeful film that reminds us a lot of the Greenest City initiative and a larger movement that we hope turns out to be a promise of sustainability for future generations.
Below is the fourth of 4 previews we're sharing over the week. To Make A Farm is screening twice (once this Friday and once this Saturday), and tickets/details can be found HERE.
http://vimeo.com/28967005
SYNOPSIS:
"It's pretty neat that your convictions can also be your life," says one of the subjects of Steve Suderman's documentary about small-scale organic farming. Here are people who've decided to put their money where their mouths are, turning their environmental idealism from theory into practice as they set out to establish their own local-supply food sources using sustainable means. We see trials, tribulations and triumph: livestock illness, soil irrigation catastrophe, social isolation and more--but at the end of the day a strong sense of satisfaction and optimism. The film is an inspiring example in these days of societal apathy and corporate hegemony, with its subjects living testaments to the validity of Gandhi's dictum, "Be the change you want to see."
The film gets personal, giving us a close-range view of humanity along with a detailed portrayal of the nuts and bolts of agriculture. The farmers come from various backgrounds and levels of relevant education, but they share a determination and generosity of spirit that's positively infectious. Environmentalist docs are growing in numbers as the global situation worsens, but this one is exceptionally hopeful. It's wonderful to see a film in which positivity and practicality are so closely linked. What Suderman and his subjects are saying is “Your convictions can be your life, too.”
