Sacrifice paysan

Bananas!*

October 2009 •English

Juan “Accidentes” Dominguez is on his biggest case ever. On behalf of twelve Nicaraguan banana workers he is tackling Dole Food in a ground-breaking legal battle for their use of a banned pesticide that was known by the company to cause sterility. Can he beat the giant, or will the corporation get away with it?

Kampf um Tibet

September 2013 •German

Tibet Les nourritures spirituelles

January 2011 •French

Kids On Ice

October 2014 •English

Quiet towns across rural Australia are in the grip of an Ice epidemic. Major international drug cartels are working with local outlawed motorcycle gangs to push crystal meth to a captive market of children.

La journée de Milenka

August 2024 •English

A short film about the daily holiday life of an enigmatic and rather luminous creature. "La journée de Milenka" is a footage of her holiday in Italy. We decided not to record it as usual footages, but instead, focus on the time and space surrounding the character. It represents a day, in the afternoon, that reflect the peace, itself represented in the slowness, which Milenka aspires (and finds) to achieve.

Farrebique, or the Four Seasons

February 1947 •French

Farrebique, the first feature-length effort of French documentary filmmaker Georges Rouqier, is widely regarded as his finest film. Rouqier concentrates on a single French farm family, following them through the four seasons. As in the works of Robert Flaherty, the human characters and the land surrounding them are "one", and Rouqier never misses an opportunity to parallel their lives with the eons-old phases of nature. The final symbolic images of Spring, achieved through time-lapse photography, are almost unbearably beautiful. The winner of several festival awards, Farrebique nonetheless did not immediately result in an outpouring of financing for Rouqier's follow-up films (this was a common problem in the financially strapped French film industry of the 1940s). Perhaps as a result, Rouqier did not make his sequel, Biquefarre (filmed in the same region, with some of the same "actors"), until 1983.

A Plastic Tide

January 2017 •English

Over eight million tonnes of plastic enters the ocean each year, killing sea life. Now new evidence says it's entering our food chain with unknown health effects.

TGV, 30 ans de vitesse

December 2011 •French

The Songs of Rice

January 2014 •Thai

In Thailand, a hymn to rice need not always be sung. A dance, or spectacular homemade fireworks can say the same thing. As can a film, as is convincingly demonstrated by this lyrical, beautifully filmed homage to this essential staple food.

Bowie, Man with a Hundred Faces or The Phantom of Hérouville

October 2016 •French

The best way to follow Bowie's trail, the phantom, was to start at a place he haunted: the mythical Hérouville Castle Studios. It was there, partly, that the 1970s rock wrote its legend, of which Bowie is one of the main protagonists.

A Time To Rise

October 1981 •English

On April 6, 1980, the Canadian Farmworkers Union came into existence. This film documents the conditions among Chinese and East Indian immigrant workers in British Columbia that provoked the formation of the union, and the response of growers and labor contractors to the threat of unionization. Made over a period of two years, the film is eloquent testimony to the progress of the workers’ movement from the first stirrings of militancy to the energetic canvassing of union members.

Love, Women & Flowers

January 1988 •Spanish

Women workers stand up to the toxic flower industry in Colombia.

Harvest of Shame

November 1960 •English

In this CBS News production broadcast on Thanksgiving 1960, Edward R. Murrow points out the plight of migrant farm workers in America. Topics range from the harsh living conditions, endless travel, low wages, and poor opportunities for their children.

80.000 Schnitzel

September 2020 •German

Battering, breading, frying – Berta has prepared thousands of schnitzels in her old cast-iron pan over the years. This 83-year-old landlady’s life on the family farm with adjoining guest house in the Upper Palatinate has been marked by constant hard work. A life that her granddaughters Monika and Hannah never wanted to lead. Now, the deeply indebted farm is on the brink of collapse. Despite having an academic background and contrary to her intentions, Monika, in her early thirties, decides to give up her modern life and save the family business. The two women join forces and give themselves a year to sort out the farm’s problems.

Earth

July 1931 •Japanese

A main agenda of the prewar farmer's movement was struggle against landowners. Prokino also considered this as their prime concern. The main title sequence and the latter part of the film have unfortunately been lost. While we cannot see its entire structure, we can still get a glimpse of it from this surviving short.

Audrey of the Alps

December 2012 •English

The personal story of a young woman in her early 20's who escapes societies expectations and becomes a sheepherder for a summer season.

Toxification

January 2020 •Panjabi

India's prosperous Green Revolution was led by Punjab, a state in northern India famous for its lush rice fields and wet, fertile soil. But as farmers are conned into buying more and more pesticides, herbicides and fertilisers that they don't need, which demand often ten times more water, the water table is sinking at an alarming rate. Punjab's water has been poisoned by the chemicals, and the farmers poison their bodies with opium, helping them to work longer and harder. Loans from a middleman are taken out, with extortionate interest rates that are impossible to pay back. As a result, hundreds of Punjabi families are left without a father, husband or son as more and more farmers cave in under the pressure and drink their own chemicals to end their lives.

L'acte de la beauté

November 2021 •French

Deepwater

June 2005 •English

A drifter comes to the town of Deepwater and is seduced into a twisted game of deceit and murder.

Of Mice and Men

September 1992 •English

Two drifters, one a gentle but slow giant, try to make money working the fields during the Depression so they can fulfill their dreams.