Bangalore Film Society presents a 1-day film festival on Food Sovereignty and Food Security on the occasion of the Festival of Just Peace on May 1, 2010.

Schedule

10:30 – 12:00

• Staging Cities (Argentina / 14 mins )
• The Story of Bottled Water (USA / 10 mins)
• Dammed Lives (Myanmar / 9 mins)
• Agent Orange: 30 years later (Vietnam / 40 mins)
• Discussion

12:00 – 1:30

• The Story of Stuff (USA / 18 mins)
• Dalit Food Systems (India / 31 mins)
• Walk with Water (India / 18 mins)
• Discussion

1:30 – 3:00

• Mirror of Netherlands (Holland / 10 mins)
• The Power of Community (Cuba / 53 mins)
• Discussion

3:00 – 4:45

• Why are Warangal Farmers Angry with BT Cotton (India / 24 mins)
• Food Inc (USA / 60 mins)
• Fair trade in India (India/10 mins)
• Discussion

Directions: Head North on the Hennur Main Road. 5 kms after the intersection with Outer Ring Road, take a right hairpin turn when you reach the Biozeen Campus. Follow route markers for Visthar. [Sham – 9845442453]

Synopsis

Staging Cities (Argentina / 14 mins )
How does one represent urban waste? Does it bear representation? And if so, then to what end? This short Argentinian documentary by Mauricio Corbalan and Pio Torroja zooms in on a furious debate on the state of the urban ecosystem and a search to overcome our own apathies.
The Story of Bottled Water (USA / 10 mins)
The Story of Bottled Water adopts the style of Story of Stuff to tell the story of manufactured demand — how you get people to buy more than half a billion bottles of water every week when it already flows from the tap. In less than 10 minutes, the film explores the bottled water industry’s attacks on tap water and its use of seductive, environmental-themed advertising to cover up the mountains of plastic waste it produces. The film concludes with a call to ‘take back the tap,’ not only by making a personal commitment to avoid bottled water, but by supporting investments in clean, available tap water for all.
Dammed Lives (Myanmar / 9 mins)
This short documentary chronicles the struggles of the Karen ethnic people in Burma as they fight to stop the damming of the Salween river. The damming of the river would flood their agricultural lands and displace them from their homeland. Earlier hydro-electric projects have already shown the tremendous human and ecological costs from similar dams.
Agent Orange: 30 years later (Vietnam / 40 mins)
This is a drama-documentary about the victims of Agent Orange 30 years after the Vietnam War. Agent Orange is the code name for the major herbicide that was used by the U.S. military during the Vietnam War to deny coverage (trees and bushes) of the North Vietnamese guerrilla soldiers. The film tells the story of several victims of Agent Orange who were exposed to the substance when it was sprayed during the war. It  interweaves compelling interviews with images culled from the archives.
The Story of Stuff (USA / 18 mins)
Annie Leonard has traveled the world tracking trash. Her investigations convinced her that the dream of perpetual economic growth and the consumerist culture are the root causes of today’s environmental crises. Annie believes we must calculate the full ecological and social cost of our “stuff.” In this light, fast-paced documentary, she takes us through the extraction of natural resources and the production, distribution, consumption, and disposal of various products, documenting ecohazards and the exploitation of workers along the way.
Dalit Food Systems (India / 31 mins)
This documentary highlights the importance of Uncultivated Foods and how they have been an intergarl part of the dalit food system in the Deccan region. It offers an entirely new perspective on rainfed farming and on what constitutes food security, women’s knowledge systems and common property resources. It shows how the margin between cultivated and uncultivated biodiversity in dalit food systems dissolves through women’s day to day practice of collecting and cooking food, constituting a feminine landscape.
Walk with Water (India / 18 mins)
This short documentary by Murali Mohan and Manjunath takes a sobering look at the city of Bangalore in the throes of the water crisis.
Mirror of Holland (Holland / 10 mins)
This is a 1950 short Dutch documentary directed by the great Bert Haanstra. It won the Short Film Palme d’Or at the 1951 Cannes Film Festival. It was an everyday waterfront with its windmills and pastoral landscape, until Bert Haanstra captured it on film with a perception that was painterly, poetic and sheer heightened cinema. Capturing the inverted reflections along the canals, even the mighty windmills seem liquid.
The Power of Community (Cuba / 53 mins)
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990, Cuba’s economy went into a tailspin. With imports of oil cut by more than half – and food by 80 percent – people were desperate. This film tells of the hardships and struggles as well as the community and creativity of the Cuban people during this difficult time. Cubans share how they transitioned from a highly mechanized, industrial agricultural system to one using organic methods of farming and local, urban gardens. It is an unusual look into the Cuban culture during this economic crisis, which they call “The Special Period.”
Why are Warangal Farmers Angry with BT Cotton (India / 24 mins)
This film, made by the women farmers of Community Media Trust in Medak district is a powerful documentation of the trauma that Bt cotton farmers experience in 2002 – 03 in Warangal. To tell this story, the women filmmakers returned tenaciously to Warangal, month after month, both in cold winter and searing summer, sought out farmers and cajoled them to share their experience on the positive and negative impacts of Bt Cotton.
Food Inc (USA / 60 mins)
Food, Inc. is directed by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Robert Kenner. The film examines corporate farming in the United States, concluding that the meat and vegetables produced by agribusiness have many hidden costs and are unhealthy and environmentally-harmful. The documentary generated extensive controversy in that it was heavily criticized by large American corporations engaged in industrial food production.