Hedging

Documentary short subject preserved by the Academy Film Archive, from the Marshall Plan Collection, in 2003.

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.

Taleb, who came to a refugee camp at the age of five in 1975 and returned there after his studies abroad, tells of his life as a displaced person, his gratitude for the reception and support in Algeria, and his hope that the Sahrawis may one day return to their homeland. For Taleb, this hope drives him to actively prepare for better times: as a graduate in agricultural sciences, he conceived a successful small-scale closed-loop economy in a desert under the most difficult conditions, producing enough food for self-sufficiency.

This Traveltalk series short visits several points of interest in England, including the port of Liverpool, war destruction at Coventry, the historic Warwick Castle, and Stratford-on-Avon, the birthplace of William Shakespeare.

This Traveltalk series short highlights rural areas of England. We stop at the village of Bradford-on-Avon, with its thatched roofs, also Stoke Poges, the burial place of British poet Thomas Gray.

Kirat falls for a man she meets online, only to get swept up in a virtual relationship that upends her life for years. Her online courtship takes an unsettling turn when she learns that her romantic interest harbours a dark secret and sinister motives, leading to a harrowing ordeal, in this shocking documentary.

For decades, migrant workers have worked the fields of Immokalee, harvesting tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, oranges and other produce that is then shipped across the United States of America. Many of the workers are undocumented, and attempting to keep their jobs even as federal migration crackdowns hover over the town. The Fields of Immokalee film follows the daily lives of tomato workers, from the 5:00am trips to the parking lot in hopes of finding day labor, to work sessions in the scorching mid-day heat, to child detention centers for migrant youth that have been separated from their families. Via these vignettes, the film offers insight into the most volatile political issue of our time.

In barely a century, French peasants have seen their world profoundly turned upside down. While they once made up the vast majority of the country, today they are only a tiny minority and are faced with an immense challenge: to continue to feed France. From the figure of the simple tenant farmer described by Emile Guillaumin at the beginning of the 20th century to the heavy toll paid by peasants during the Great War, from the beginnings of mechanization in the inter-war period to the ambivalent figure of the peasant under the Occupation, From the unbridled race to industrialization in post-war France to the realization that it is now necessary to rethink the agricultural model and invent the agriculture of tomorrow, the film looks back at the long march of French peasants.

Maël is a passionate gardener and an environmental activist. Away from big cities, sharing is time between his agricultural college, his contract of apprenticeship, and his beloved vegetable garden, Maël grows up with deep-rooted alter-globalist beliefs.

In such a difficult situation in Hong Kong agriculture, to local farmers, before expecting a good harvest, they have to first overcome the problems caused by agricultural policy implementation, land policy and urban development in Hong Kong. This film is about three middle-aged local organic farmers and their farming stories: A peasant leader, who faces political infiltration in organization, decides to quit and focuses on his farming; a rural woman who fights against North East New Territories development plan and taking care of her sick husband at the same time, decides to combine family life with her home farming; a sixty years old truck driver who decides to have a career change, trying to live a fearless and free life as a farmer.

In this wildly entertaining vision of one of the twentieth century’s greatest artists, Bob Dylan is surrounded by teen fans, gets into heated philosophical jousts with journalists, and kicks back with fellow musicians Joan Baez, Donovan, and Alan Price.

It would be difficult to find more comprehensive tour through the byways and highways, lanes and paths, nooks and crannies, major sights and unexpected discoveries of enchanting England! After seeing the fascinations of London, It's out into the country for spectacular lakes and streams, green hills and dales, charming houses and inns, castles and cathedrals, thatched roofs and the cobblestone streets of scores of colourful towns in between, from Aldeburgh to York.

Keur Simbara is an intimate, lyrical short documentary that follows a group of women community organizers in a rural Senegalese village as they build and sustain systems of health, finance, agriculture, and domestic infrastructure. Amid water scarcity and environmental challenges, they articulate their hopes for the future and the legacy they wish to leave behind. Keur Simbara is a tribute to communal wisdom and the power of local organizing.

This short documentary illustrates rural French Canadian life in the early 1940s. The film follows Alexis Tremblay and his family through the busy autumn days as they bring in the harvest and help with bread baking and soap making. Winter sees the children revelling in outdoor sports while the women are busy with their weaving, and, with the coming of spring young and old alike repair to the fields once more to plough the earth in preparation for another season of varied crops. One of the first NFB films to be produced, directed, written and shot by women.