The Agro Rebel: Permaculture in the Salzburg Alps

NARC. Mini-Doc - Magic Hat Cafe: Building A Sustainable Community

November 2022 •English

Evie Lake introduces The Magic Hat Cafe, an anti-food waste cafe in Newcastle. In today’s climate, it’s hard not to worry about waste. Not just our own, but that of supermarkets and suppliers. Is every carrot, potato and piece of meat going to be used? What happens if they’re not? Magic Hat acts on these worries and turns would-be-wasted produce into meals and experiences for people to enjoy. Magic Hat is an innovative and progressive organisation in the way that it puts people first. Instead of purchasing your coffee and food, there’s an option to pay it back by working for them for a few hours. They also let people volunteer to learn new skills, to make themselves more employable and, in addition to being an environmentally conscious operation which eradicates waste in their supply chain, their sustainability also feeds directly into the community through food bank donations, education and delicious food.

The Permaculture Orchard: Beyond Organic

June 2014 •French

This feature-length educational film teaches you how to set up your own permaculture orchard at virtually any scale. We recognize the limitations of the organic model as a substitute to conventional fruit growing, and want to propose a more holistic, regenerative approach based on permaculture principles. Based on 20 years of applied theory and trial and error, biologist and educator Stefan Sobkowiak shares his experience transforming a conventional apple orchard into an abundance of biodiversity that virtually takes care of itself. The concepts, techniques and tips presented in this film will help you with your own project, whether it is just a few fruit trees in your urban backyard, or a full-scale multi-acre commercial orchard.

Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret

July 2014 •English

Follow the shocking, yet humorous, journey of an aspiring environmentalist, as he daringly seeks to find the real solution to the most pressing environmental issues and true path to sustainability.

Meeting Place Organic Film

April 2016 •English

Local, organic, and sustainable are words we associate with food production today, but 40 years ago, when Fran and Tony McQuail started farming in Southwestern Ontario, they were barely spoken. Since 1973, the McQuails have been helping to build the organic farming community and support the next generation of organic farmers. This is a documentary about the McQuails that explores the very real ways their farm has contributed to the long term ecological viability of agriculture in Ontario. It is a call to action for all those who believe there is a better way to take care of our planet and feed the world.

Food, Inc.

September 2008 •English

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.

A Life on the Farm

May 2023 •English

A strange story from Somerset, England about a filmmaking farmer and the inspiring legacy of his long-lost home movies.

King Corn

October 2007 •English

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.

Rasulan

October 2024 •Indonesian

The Ants and the Grasshopper

May 2021 •English

Anita Chitaya has a gift: she can help bring abundant food from dead soil, she can make men fight for gender equality, and maybe she can end child hunger in her village. Now, to save her home in Malawi from extreme weather, she faces her greatest challenge: persuading Americans that climate change is real. Traveling from Malawi to California to the White House, she meets climate sceptics and despairing farmers. Her journey takes her across all the divisions that shape the USA: from the rural-urban divide, to schisms of race, class and gender, and to the American exceptionalism that remains a part of the culture. It will take all her skill and experience to help Americans recognise, and free themselves from, a logic that is already destroying the Earth.

Prime Farmland

August 2020 •English

This documentary film follows farmers and activists fighting together to stop the Indiana Enterprise Center, a mega-sized industrial park planned west of South Bend, Indiana

Profession grimpeur, Eric Escoffier

January 1985 •French

A documentary portrait of the legend Eric Escoffier at the height of his mountaineering career. A true athlete, Escoffier has comprehensive, cutting-edge preparation in three different climbing disciplines: rock climbing, ice climbing and solo free climbing, without any safety devices. Philippe Lallet's camera follows Eric in his performances and in his preparation for one of the first La Sportroccia climbing competitions, in 1985 in Bardonecchia in Italy.

Diptych

June 1967 •French

A short film by Walerian Borowczyk in two parts. The first 'panel' follows the morning routine of Leon Boyer who, despite being almost 100 years old, still farms the land, drives a vintage car, and plays with his two dogs. The second panel shows shots of beautiful flowers and a cat, to a recording of Tino Rossi singing 'La romance de Nadir / Je crois encore entendre' from Bizet's opera 'Les pêcheurs de perles'.

White Winter

December 2022 •German

In southern Germany, winter can still be admired in all its glory every year. With its white coat of snow and icicles and myriads of small crystals that look like geometric works of art. In the valleys and on the slopes the snow is still so thick every year that the alpine huts are snowed in up to the windows. Cows and dairymen are safe in their farms at lower altitudes. But not the wild creatures of the mountains! They need strategies to survive the cold season and to defy snow masses, cold and ice. And some seem to do it so easily that they even raise their young in the middle of winter. But how do animals, plants and fungi cope with the annually recurring ice age, which from our perspective is a time of need? The many adaptations in nature prove that winter is an integral part of the natural cycle of the year and the living environment of species. They are adapted to cold and frost. That is why the animals and plants at the edge of the Alps suffer particularly from climate change!

Gunda

April 2021 •English

A glimpse into the raw and simple power of nature through encounters with farm animals: the eponymous Gunda, a mother pig; two cows, and a one-legged chicken.

The Real Dirt on Farmer John

January 2006 •English

An outcast in his community, Farmer John bravely stands amidst a failing economy, vicious rumors, and violence. By melding the traditions of family farming with the power of art and free expression, this powerful story of transformation and renewal heralds a resurrection of farming in America. Through highly personal interviews and 50 years of beautifully textured footage, filmmaker Taggart Siegel shares Farmer John’s haunting and humorous odyssey, capturing what it means to be wildly different in a rural community.

The Neglected Miracle

July 1985 •English

Indigenous farmers in Peru, Nicaragua, Italy, France, Australia and New Zealand share their intimacy with the land and the seeds they have nurtured for generations; global corporations attempt to 'own' the intellectual property of seeds.

Land Rush

December 2012 •English

A partnership between the Government of Mali and an American agricultural investor may see 200-square kilometers of Malian land transformed into a large-scale sugar cane plantation. Land Rush documents the hopes, fears, wishes, and demands of small-scale subsistence farmers in the region who look to benefit, or lose out, from the deal.

Dirt! The Movie

August 2009 •English

A look at man's relationship with Dirt. Dirt has given us food, shelter, fuel, medicine, ceramics, flowers, cosmetics and color --everything needed for our survival. For most of the last ten thousand years we humans understood our intimate bond with dirt and the rest of nature. We took care of the soils that took care of us. But, over time, we lost that connection. We turned dirt into something "dirty." In doing so, we transform the skin of the earth into a hellish and dangerous landscape for all life on earth. A millennial shift in consciousness about the environment offers a beacon of hope - and practical solutions.

Sovereign Soil

November 2019 •English

Built on a layer of frozen earth, Dawson City, Yukon, Canada has subarctic winters where temperatures routinely drop below −40°C. Meet the four season food producers who engage in small-scale agriculture, and those who support their back-to-the-land movement. These resilient unassuming farmers have carved out small patches of fertile soil, in an otherwise unforgiving expanse of isolated wilderness, to make a living and a life.

Cow

January 2022 •English

A close-up portrait of the daily lives of a pair of cows: told by way of some narrative-free, intimate POV photography, with plenty of close shot images, we follow the daily routine of these animals as they live what can only be described as mundane, boring lives - all with an ultimate purpose within the human food chain.