Film Databases | Movies | TV Series
FILM DATABASES
Michigan State University
Database of introductory books and films/documentaries related to food and agriculture (mostly from the last 7 to 8 years).
UC Berkeley's Media Resource Center
On Food: Production, Consumption, Politics
Media that Matters
A collection of short films on food and sustainability
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MOVIES
ASPARAGUS: A STALK-UMENTARY
For thirty years, Oceana County Michigan has been the Asparagus Capital of the World. Now its residents and family farms take on the U.S. War on Drugs, Free Trade, and a Fast Food Nation, all to save their beloved ‘roots'.
BEYOND ORGANIC: THE VISION OF FAIRVIEW GARDENS
Tells the story of Fairview Gardens and its struggle to survive in the face of rapid suburban development. It draws a sharp contrast between community-supported agriculture and conventional chemical farming.
BIG RIVER
Following on the Peabody winning documentary King Corn, this film investigates the environmental impact an acre of Iowa corn has on the people and places downstream.
DECONSTRUCTING SUPPER
A journey into the billion-dollar battle to control food production.
DIRT! THE MOVIE
Tells the amazing and little known story of the relationship of humans and living dirt.
EAT AT BILL'S: LIFE IN THE MONTEREY MARKET
A video documentary by Lisa Brennis about the phenomenon that is the Monterey Market, a family owned produce market in Berkeley, CA.
FAST FOOD NATION
An ensemble piece examining the health risks involved in the fast food industry and its environmental and social consequences as well.
FED UP
Genetic Engineering, Industrial Agriculture and Sustainable Alternatives
FOOD INC.
In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA.
FRESH: NEW THINKING ABOUT WHAT WE’RE EATING
FRESH celebrates the farmers, thinkers and business people across America who are re-inventing our food system.
GLEANERS AND I
It's about the practice - now threatened - of people gleaning left-behind produce from harvested fields, mostly a European thing. The film even gets into the modern version of gleaning - dumpster diving!
GROWN IN DETROIT
An award-winning documentary by Mascha and Manfred Poppenk about a program that teaches urban agriculture to teen moms.
HOMEGROWN REVOLUTION
In the midst of a densely urban setting in downtown Pasadena, radical change is taking root. For over twenty years, the Dervaes family have transformed their home into an urban homestead. They harvest nearly 3 tons of organic food from their 1/10 acre garden while incorporating many back-to-basics practices, as well as solar energy and biodiesel.
INGREDIENTS
At the focal point of this movement, and of this film, are the farmers and chefs who are creating a truly sustainable food system. Their collaborative work has resulted in great tasting food and an explosion of consumer awareness about the benefits of eating local.
THE IRAQI SEED PROJECT
In a collection of five short films and an interactive website, The Iraqi Seed Project explores the past, present and future of agriculture in the Fertile Cresent; its valuable legacies and precarious future.
KING CORN
This is a twofold journey: the story of how two college buddies learned about their agricultural heritage, and the tale of how kernels of corn have insidiously worked their way into America's diet. See “Big River” to learn about the follow-up documentary to King Corn.
LIFE RUNNING OUT OF CONTROL
Bertram Verhag's film offers a thorough examination of the issues surrounding the genetic manipulation of plants, animals and human beings.
LUNATIC FARMER
Farmer Joel Salatin is considered by many as the “high priest of the pasture.” Restaurant reviewers say Chef Cathal Armstrong “steeps into another reality using local ingredients...to produce dishes that are subtly, intriguingly unique.” As the two connect on film, along with Armstrong's kids, Eve 7 and Eammon 4, on the rolling pastures of Joel Salatin's idyllic Polyface Farm, we get a lesson in where our food comes from and how to care for the land.
MY FATHERS GARDEN
This film is about the use and misuse of technology on the American farm telling the story of how synthetic chemicals have changed farming and farmers.
POLYCULTURES: FOOD WHERE WE LIVE
The film gets its title from the word “polyculture” which describes farm systems that mimic natural systems with diverse and interdependent elements. PolyCultures also describes the social movement that has formed around local food systems, including the integration of diverse communities, both rural and urban, across Northeast Ohio.
SEEDS OF HOPE: FEEDING THE WORLD ONE COMMUNITY AT A TIME
About rural communities around the world that are using community-based approaches to battle food insecurity. A woman's group in South Africa starts small vegetable gardens to feed their families, an NGO in Cambodia that starts a rice seed credit bank and nutrition education, a profile of Patchwork Family Farms in Missouri and a community research project in Colombia that helps farmers produce food more effectively. 4 sections – total 24 minutes. Producer: Sarah Hesterman, Creative Realization, [media for social change];
SUPER SIZE ME
In SUPER SIZE ME, filmmaker Morgan Spurlock unravels the American obesity epidemic by interviewing experts nationwide and by subjecting himself to a “McDonald’s only” diet for thirty days straight.
SUSTAINABLE TABLE: WHAT’S ON YOUR PLATE?
Sustainable Table is a feature documentary that takes an unadulterated look into the food you eat. What’s on your plate? Where does it come from? What effects does it have on the environment and your body? What can you do to help?
TABLELAND
A culinary expedition in search of the people, place and taste of North American small scale, sustainable food production.
THE ACCOUNTANT
The 2001 Academy Award Winning ® Best Action Live Short film tells the story of a mysterious accountant whose remarkable mathematical skills just might save the O’Dell family farm.
THE BERING SEA: AN ECOSYSTEM IN CRISIS
The pollock poplation in Alaska's Bering Sea is the basis of the ecosystem, but overfishing has brought this species to the edge. This film explores what could happen to the ecosystem and other species in the sea if the pollock popultion isn't restored.
THE COVE
Academy Award® Winner for Best Documentary of 2009, THE COVE follows an elite team of activists, filmmakers and freedivers as they embark on a covert mission to penetrate a remote and hidden cove in Taiji, Japan, shining a light on a dark and deadly secret. Utilizing state-of-the-art techniques, including hidden microphones and cameras in fake rocks, the team uncovers how this small seaside village serves as a horrifying microcosm of massive ecological crimes happening worldwide.
If you don't think killing dolphins is realted to the food system... think again.
THE END OF THE LINE
The world's first major documentary about the devasting effects of overfishing. Imagine an ocean without fish. Imagine your meals without seafood Imagine the global consequences. This is the future if we do not stop, think, and act.
THE FISH BELONG TO THE PEOPLE
This is a feature length documentary that follows a group of family fishermen in Port Clyde, Maine as they work to save their fishing grounds from government, market structure, and themselves.
THE FUTURE OF FOOD
This film by Deborah Garcia offers an in-depth investigation into the disturbing truth behind the unlabeled, patented, genetically engineered foods that have quietly filled U.S. grocery store shelves for the past decade.
THE GLOBAL GARDENER with Bill Mollison
4, ½ segments about permaculture around the world
THE MEATRIX
THE REAL DIRT ON FARMER JOHN
A film that charts Farmer John's astonishing journey from farm boy to counter-culture rebel to the son who almost lost the family farm to a beacon of today's booming organic farming movement.
VANISHING OF THE BEES
A UK film revealing the shocking truth about the declining bee population.
WEED IT AND REAP: PAUL’S STORY
The story of a man and his dog and their journey back from addiction on the streets (via the Chelsea Flower Show).
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TV SERIES
CHEFS A' FIELD
Chefs A’ Field was one of the first in the cooking genre to focus on environmental issues pertaining to food, travel, and lifestyle. This season (season 4) showcases America’s best chefs who, with family and friends, visit local farmers and fishermen to learn about eco-friendly foods. Then, it is back to the kitchen for a behind-the-scenes cooking lesson. Here the professional techniques of the restaurant kitchen are simplified to inspire people off all ages and skill levels to get cooking.
Season 1
Season 2
Season 3: (Kids on the Farm)
PRODUCED BY: WARNER HANSON TELEVISION
Respected producers of quality documentary programs and specialists in High Definition Television (HDTV), WHTV has filmed in some of world's most remote regions of North and South America, Africa, Asia, and Iceland. They are the creators for Chefs A’ Field and have also worked on Kids on the Farm, The Culture of Food, and Foodstuffs, which are all in various stages of production. Check their site for updates.
COOKING UP A STORY
Cooking Up A Story offers a variety of content through documentary short stories, interviews, and cooking demonstrations providing information and inspiration about family farmers, agriculture and sustainability, food history, food culture, food science, and much, much more. They explore how the food economy and the food industry have evolved, and the challenges that lie ahead. The future depends upon our ability to protect our planet while ensuring we keep wholesome food on our plates, provide fair compensation to family farmers, and farm workers, and healthy food affordable to people of all means.
MEET THE FARMER TV
Meet the Farmer.tv examines the special relationships that develop between the growers and the chefs and the consumers. By searching through the steps and the interactions of all the factors involved in bringing food from the farm to the table they hope to show the deeper values and hiddne benefits of supporting your local food systems.
ORGANIC NATION TV
OrganicNational.tv is an exploration of the American sustainable food landscape focusing on the people, places and products that are shaping a new green economy and lifestyle. From farmers to urban gardeners, teachers to restaurant owners, we're traveling the country to document how sustainable food systems are being created.
REAL IMPACT: ENVIRONMENTAL DOCUMENTARY SERIES
Airing on Planet Green beginning in September 2009. This series includes such films as: "The Last Beekeeper"; "The 11th Hour"; "A Sea Change"; "Who Killed the Electric Car?"; "Grizzly Man"; "An Inconvenient Truth"; "Black Wave: Exxon Valdez"; and "No Impact Man"
SEASONED WITH SPIRIT
Season With Spirit is a 5-part PBS series that offers viewers a culinary celebration of America’s bounty combining Native American history and culture with delicious, healthy recipes inspired by indigenous foods. Much more than simply a cooking series, each 30-minute episode of Seasoned with Spirit is a visually stunning, cultural adventure across the American landscape where viewers meet Native American peoples, see their breathtaking environs, learn their history and traditions, and, best of all, taste their cuisine.
BIG PICTURE TV: TALKING HEADS, TALKING SENSE
Big Picture TV streams free video clips of leading experts, thinkers and activists in environmental and social sustainability. The links below are just some of the videos related to food and agriculture available from Big Picture TV.
Planet Organic
Tewolde Egziabher observes that traditional agricultural methods are organic, using nature’s own forces of renewal. Organic food production is desirable both in terms of increasing food security and improving long-term soil fertility. It also reduces unnecessary dependence on imported agrichemical inputs. This is certainly true in Africa. The African continent is so large that he dismisses the idea that it cannot be self-sufficient in organic produce.
A Revolution in Sustainable Agriculture
As Director of the U.K.’s largest organic certifier, Patrick Holden talks about the agricultural crisis brought about by fifty years of intensive farming. He describes how people everywhere are increasingly concerned about standards of food safety and quality in light of scares such as BSE and Foot and Mouth. More recently, GM and seed ownership continue to fuel a heated worldwide debate. Holden explains how organic food production provides a safe and healthy alternative and describes how the origins of the movement date back over millennia.
The Slow Food Movement – Part One
The Slow Food Movement – Part Two
Slow Food is a global movement dedicated to the preservation of traditional food culture. In this two-part series Erika Lesser, Director of Slow Food USA, compares slow food with fast food culture. Whereas the latter tastes the same anywhere in the world, slow food celebrates diverse local food flavours and taste. Slow Food means knowing where food comes from and what the true costs of production are. It is also about food security – understanding that a varied food supply is a safe one.
The Origins of Slow Food
Erika Lesser talks about the origins of the Slow Food movement, founded by Italian journalist Carlo Petrini in the mid-1980s. Recognizing that the industrialization of food was homogenizing taste and rendering thousands of food varieties extinct, Petrini started a campaign in Italy to preserve local food culture. The campaign has since become a global movement with close to a hundred thousand supporters from over 50 countries.
Food Security
Mohau Pheko (and daughter) outline the vital role women play in African food production. Around 75% of those employed in the sector are women. But despite being traditional custodians of seed technology and biodiversity in Africa, women are not represented at management level. In her view, the issue of food should be eliminated from trade discussions dominated by Western governments supportive of the status quo.
Why GM Won’t Solve Hunger
Many Bio-tech companies market their GM seeds using the claim that GM is the answer to world hunger. Here, Norberg-Hodge explains how these profit-driven corporations are in reality preventing third-world farmers from planting the local native seeds they have been using for generations. She also cites the lack of in-depth risk assessment as a reason for putting the technology on hold.
The Local Food Movement (Part One)
The Local Food Movement (Part Two)
In the first part of this two-part series, Helena Norberg-Hodge talks about the benefits that supporting the local food economy can bring to both consumers and producers. In the second part of this two-part series, Helena Norberg-Hodge explains why supporting the local food economy needn’t mean we stop buying coffee, tropical fruits and other items flown in from abroad. Consumers should be more aware of the origins of their staple foods – that way, she says, they can make conscious choices to support local growers where possible.
The Future of Food – Part One
The Future of Food – Part Two
The Prince of Wales gave this closing speech at the Terra Madre conference in Turin, Italy. The conference, held in October 2004, brought together 5,000 small scale food producers and traders and was organized by the Slow Food movement. His Royal Highness talks about globalization, the homogenization of food and the manipulation of nature. He then warns of the dangers of imposing industrial farming systems on traditional agricultural economies, especially in the developing world.
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