Food-Agriculture

At the Fork

At the Fork

John Papola and Lisa Versaci/2016/90 min/Food-Agriculture

Saturday, March 4, 2:30 p.m. [W Suburbs]
Oak Park Public Library, Oak Park

FILM DESCRIPTION: Filmmaker and omnivore John Papola, together with his vegetarian wife Lisa, offer up a timely and refreshingly unbiased look at how farm animals are raised for our consumption. With unprecedented access to large-scale conventional farms, Papola asks the tough questions behind every hamburger, glass of milk and baby-back rib. What he discovers are not heartless industrialists, but America’s farmers — real people who, along with him, are grappling with the moral dimensions of farming animals for food. 

Can You Dig This?

Can You Dig This?

Delila Vallot/2015/84 min/Food-Agriculture

Saturday, March 4, 3 p.m. [West]
Garfield Park Conservatory, Chicago

Tuesday, March 7, 7 p.m. [South]
St. Paul & the Redeemer Church, Chicago

FILM DESCRIPTION:  South Los Angeles. What comes to mind is gangs, drugs, liquor stores, abandoned buildings and vacant lots. The last thing that you would expect to find is a beautiful garden sprouting up through the concrete, coloring the urban landscape. Calling for people to put down their guns and pick up their shovels, these "gangster gardeners" are creating an oasis in the middle of one of the most notoriously dangerous places in America.

Dive!

Dive!

Jeremy Seifert/2009/53 min/Waste

SOLD OUT!
VIEW AND BREW [Downtown]
Sunday, March 12, 12:30 p.m.
Haymarket Pub & Brewery, Chicago

FILM DESCRIPTION: Inspired by a curiosity about our country's careless habit of sending food straight to landfills, the multi award-winning documentary DIVE! follows filmmaker Jeremy Seifert and friends as they dumpster dive in the back alleys and gated garbage receptacles of Los Angeles' supermarkets. In the process, they salvage thousands of dollars worth of good, edible food - resulting in an inspiring documentary that is equal parts entertainment, guerilla journalism and call to action. 

Food Frontiers

Food Frontiers

Leo Horrigan and Mike Milli/2016/36 min/Food-Agriculture

Wednesday, March 8, 7 p.m. [South]
Harper Theater, Chicago

CHICAGO PREMIERE. FILM DESCRIPTION: Food Frontiers showcases six projects from around the United States that are increasing access to healthy food in varied ways – from a pioneering farm-to-school project to creative supermarket financing to cooking classes in a doctor’s office and a teen-managed grocery store.

Growing Cities

Growing Cities

Dan Susman and Andrew Monbouquette/2013/60 min/Food-Agriculture

Saturday, March 4, 12 p.m. [West]
Chicago Public Library, Austin Branch

FILM DESCRIPTION: Take road trip with the filmmakers to meet the men and women who are challenging the way this country grows and distributes its food, one vacant city lot, rooftop garden, and backyard chicken coop at a time. Join them as they discover that good food isn’t the only crop these urban visionaries are harvesting. Urban farmers are producing stronger and more vibrant communities, too.

Seed, The Untold Story

Seed, The Untold Story

Taggart Siegel and Jon Betz/2016/93 min/Food-Agriculture

Monday, March 6, 6:30 p.m. [North]
North Shore Country Day, Winnetka

FILM DESCRIPTION: In our modern world, seeds are in grave danger. In less than a century of industrial agriculture, our once abundant seed diversity—painstakingly created by ancient farmers and gardeners over countless millennia—has been drastically winnowed down to a handful of mass-produced varieties. Under the spell of industrial “progress” and lust for profit, our quaint family farmsteads have given way to mechanized agribusinesses sowing genetically identical crops on a monstrous scale. 

A Small Good Thing

A Small Good Thing

Pamela Tanner Boll/ 2015/71 min/ People-Culture

Sunday, March 5, 12:30 p.m. [W Suburbs]
St. Giles Catholic Church, Oak Park

Sunday, March 5, 3:30p.m. [North]
Wilmette Theatre, Wilmette

CHICAGO PREMIERE. FILM DESCRIPTION: For the longest time, we’ve been living as though the more we have—the more money, the more goods, the more territory—the happier we’ll be. Surprisingly, over the last fifty years as our standard of living has improved, our happiness has not. A Small Good Thing examines how our ideal of the American Dream has come to the end of its promise. The film tells the stories of people moving away from a philosophy of ‘more is better’ toward a more holistic conception of happiness — one based on a close connection to their bodies and health, to the natural world, and to the greater good.

Sustainable

Sustainable

Matt Wechsler/2016/92 min/Food-Agriculture

Saturday, March 4, 10 a.m. [W Suburbs]
Lake Theatre, Oak Park

FILM DESCRIPTION: A vital investigation of the economic and environmental instability of America’s food system, from the agricultural issues we face — soil loss, water depletion, climate change, pesticide use — to the community of leaders who are determined to fix it. Sustainable is a film about the land, the people who work it and what must be done to sustain it for future generations.

Tierralismo

Tierralismo

Alejandro Ramirez Anderson/2014/60 min/Social Justice

Saturday, March 11, 12 p.m. [Pilsen]
Lincoln United Methodist Church, Pilsen

SPANISH SOUNDTRACK WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES: In the district of Alamar, a 26-acre farming co-op provides employment for dozens of workers, while producing vegetables and medicinal plants for the local community and beyond. What began as necessity—farming without pesticides and chemical fertilizers—has become a source of provision to coop members. They fertilize with compost and cow manure, raise their own insects for biological pest control, and have even created a fully biodegradable alternative to the plastic bag for use with seedlings.

Tomorrow (Demain)

Tomorrow (Demain)

Melanie Laurent and Cyril Dion/2015/115 min/Environmental Advocacy

Sunday, March 5, 2 p.m. [South]
Windsor Park Lutheran Church, Chicago

CHICAGO PREMIERE. FILM DESCRIPTION: Showing solutions, telling a feel-good story… this may be the best way to solve the ecological, economical and social crises that our countries are going through. After a special briefing for the journal Nature announced the possible extinction of a part of mankind before the end of the 21st century, Cyril Dion and Mélanie Laurent, together with a team of four people, carried out an investigation in ten different countries to figure out what may lead to this disaster and above all how to avoid it.

Toxic Chemicals: Kids in Danger

Toxic Chemicals: Kids in Danger

Martin Boudot/2016/55 min/Health-Environment

Saturday, March 11, 3 p.m. [W Suburbs]
Oak Park Public Library, Oak Park

FILM DESCRIPTION: Is our dependence on pesticides harming the health of our children? Every day, children are exposed to up to 130 chemical pollutants from pesticides. All around the world, scientists and doctors are raising the alarm, linking increases in child cancers, birth defects and even the explosion of autism with exposure to chemicals in pesticides.