Maine's Home Movies

An essay film celebrating the work and home life of a rural state in the early twentieth century. Focusing on "the gaze" of amateur filmmakers and their subjects - so often someone they know well. Drawn from the regional archives at Northeast Historic Film.

The Uncertainty Has Settled

Agriculture and its perspective in modern times. The change from farmers to energy supplier raise questions. Are we doing the right thing?

Les Champs de la colère

Introduction à la vie rurale de l'avenir

The daily schedule is rational and step by step the farmer's tasks are carried out both in the household (ironing, making beds, raising children, making food) and in the yard (feeding animals, analyzing milk samples, making cheese, churning milk, work in the vegetable garden, collecting eggs). In the evening, she puts the children to bed and has some time left for some relaxing activities such as knitting or reading.

Food, Inc.

Documentary filmmaker Robert Kenner examines how mammoth corporations have taken over all aspects of the food chain in the United States, from the farms where our food is grown to the chain restaurants and supermarkets where it's sold. Narrated by author and activist Eric Schlosser, the film features interviews with average Americans about their dietary habits, commentary from food experts like Michael Pollan and unsettling footage shot inside large-scale animal processing plants.

The Permaculture Orchard: Beyond Organic

This feature-length educational film teaches you how to set up your own permaculture orchard at virtually any scale. We recognize the limitations of the organic model as a substitute to conventional fruit growing, and want to propose a more holistic, regenerative approach based on permaculture principles. Based on 20 years of applied theory and trial and error, biologist and educator Stefan Sobkowiak shares his experience transforming a conventional apple orchard into an abundance of biodiversity that virtually takes care of itself. The concepts, techniques and tips presented in this film will help you with your own project, whether it is just a few fruit trees in your urban backyard, or a full-scale multi-acre commercial orchard.

Against the Grain

A glimpse at how genre film-focused home video companies have taken the charge in preserving, restoring, and releasing so many works which otherwise might have been lost to time.

Good Stewards

Farmers alone cannot make our food system thrive - it’s up to all of us. That is the message of this enlightening and encouraging film. The good stewardship efforts being made by farmers, consumers and policy makers in the rapidly growing county of Ventura, California will inspire any community interested in preserving agricultural resources.

Sortes

Beneath the harvest sun and the cicada song, Mónica Martins Nunes builds a touching portrait of Serra de Serpa, an arid region in the south of Portugal affected by rural exodus. The poems sung by the shepherds and market traders resonate like the last gesture of a human landscape which resists sinking into oblivion.

Kong Rice

The film tells the story of how Hong Kong rice farmers use their crops to pour time and strength into connecting Hong Kong people and their land. To stand up to the challenges Hong Kong nature offered, the farmers put effort into farming their own rice and spread their contribution in agriculture in order to enable Hongkongers to taste the rice from the very soil they stand on. The countless stories behind a bowl of local rice, which embeds the inseparable relationship between the land and its people, are told through this film.

Seeds of Change

An organic farmer in Maine sets out to transform the prison food system. Seeds of Change captures the intersecting stories of life-long farmer Mark McBrine and several incarcerated men as they harvest their own meals from a five-acre prison garden unlike any other.

Semences : les gardiens de la biodiversité

Alexis Tremblay: Habitant

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.

Windbreaks on the Prairies

This short film serves as a cautionary tale to farmers who recklessly cut down trees on their land. When prairie farmers engaged in this practice to facilitate plowing, they discovered that the trees had served as windbreaks protecting top soil from erosion. The Dominion Department of Agriculture's experimental station at Indian Head, Saskatchewan, cultivated acres of young trees for distribution to farmers.

The Law of the Land - Alentejo 1976

The agriculture reforming process, after the 1974 revolution, is seen through an analysis of the social structures and class struggles of the Portuguese society.

A Distant Noise

During the rice sowing season, Jun, a young Catalan of Chinese origin, works as a seasonal worker in the Ebro Delta. This ancient labour will make him confront his own roots and the distance that separates him from his family.

The Seeds of Vandana Shiva

How did the willful daughter of a Himalayan forest conservator become Monsanto’s worst nightmare? The Seeds of Vandana Shiva tells the remarkable life story of Gandhian eco-activist Dr. Vandana Shiva, how she stood up to the corporate Goliaths of industrial agriculture, rose to prominence in the regenerative food movement, and inspired an international crusade for change.

For What it's Worth, Milk a Goat

In a world drifting further away from participatory food production, relying instead on large corporations to feed us, this film asks “What do we lose by giving up our responsibility to produce food?”

Farmsteaders

Clear-eyed and intimate, Farmsteaders follows Nick Nolan and his young family on a journey to resurrect his late grandfather’s dairy farm as agriculture moves toward large-scale farming. A study of place and persistence, Farmsteaders points an honest and tender lens at everyday life in rural America, offering an unexpected voice for a forsaken people: those who grow the food that sustains us.

The First Season

Paul and Phyllis van Amburgh, believing that a small, family farm is the best place to raise their children, take their life savings and buy a defunct dairy. With three children and a fourth on the way and armed only with their principles and determination, they fight to defy the odds as they become full time farmers. THE FIRST SEASON, through an intimate, cinema verite style, bears witness to the Van Amburgh's struggle as they fight against relentless toil, financial ruin and the harsh reality of diary farming to achieve their version of the American dream.

Kiss the Ground

Sheds light on an alternative approach to farming called “regenerative agriculture” that could balance our climate, replenish our vast water supplies, and feed the world.

The Biggest Little Farm

The successes and failures of a couple determined to live in harmony with nature on a farm outside of Los Angeles are lovingly chronicled by filmmaking farmer John Chester, in this inspiring documentary.

Zeitgeist: Moving Forward

A presentation of a case for a needed transition out of the current socioeconomic monetary paradigm which governs the entire world society. This subject matter will transcend the issues of cultural relativism and traditional ideology and move to relate the core, empirical 'life ground' attributes of human and social survival, extrapolating those immutable natural laws into a new sustainable social paradigm called a 'Resource-Based Economy'.

South of the Border

A road trip across five countries to explore the social and political movements as well as the mainstream media's misperception of South America while interviewing seven of its elected presidents.

Human

A collection of stories about and images of our world, offering an immersion to the core of what it means to be human. Through these stories full of love and happiness, as well as hatred and violence, it brings us face to face with the Other, making us reflect on our lives. From stories of everyday experiences to accounts of the most unbelievable lives, these poignant encounters share a rare sincerity and underline who we are – our darker side, but also what is most noble in us, and what is universal. Our Earth is shown at its most sublime through never-before-seen aerial images accompanied by soaring music, resulting in an ode to the beauty of the world, providing a moment to draw breath and for introspection. This film is a politically engaged work which allows us to embrace the human condition and to reflect on the meaning of our existence.

Ex Libris: The New York Public Library

A documentary about how a dominant cultural and demographic institution both sustains their traditional activities and adapts to the digital revolution.

Meeting Gorbachev

Mikhail Gorbachev, former president of the Soviet Union, sits down with filmmaker Werner Herzog to discuss his many achievements. Topics include the talks to reduce nuclear weapons, the reunification of Germany and the dissolution of his country.

My Daughter's Killer

A father fights for decades to bring his daughter's killer to justice in France and Germany before taking extreme measures.

The Rise and Rise of Bitcoin

A documentary about the development and spread of the virtual currency called Bitcoin.

Girl Rising

Nine filmmakers each profile a young girl from a different part of the world to weave a global tapestry of youth in the 21st century.

Harmontown

A comedic, brutally honest documentary following self-destructive TV writer Dan Harmon as he takes his live podcast on a national tour.

After Truth: Disinformation and the Cost of Fake News

An investigation into the ongoing threat caused by the phenomenon of “fake news” in the U.S., focusing on the real-life consequences that disinformation, conspiracy theories and false news stories have on the average citizen.

Sans Soleil

A woman narrates the thoughts of a world traveler, meditations on time and memory expressed in words and images from places as far-flung as Japan, Guinea-Bissau, Iceland, and San Francisco.

12 Days

A new documentary by filmmaker-photographer Raymond Depardon – where justice and psychiatry meet.

Daguerréotypes

An intimate portrait of the small shops and shopkeepers of the Rue Daguerre in Paris, a picturesque street that has been the filmmaker’s home for more than 50 years.

Fuck

A documentary on the expletive's origin, why it offends some people so deeply, and what can be gained from its use.

Black Sheep

After the high-profile killing of Damilola Taylor, Cornelius' family move out of London. But when they discover their new town is run by racists, Cornelius takes a drastic step to survive.

Showrunners: The Art of Running a TV Show

“Showrunners” is the first ever feature length documentary film to explore the fascinating world of US television showrunners and the creative forces aligned around them. These are the people responsible for creating, writing and overseeing every element of production on one of the United State’s biggest exports – television drama and comedy series. Often described as the most complex job in the entertainment business, a showrunner is the chief writer / producer on a TV series and, in most instances, the show’s creator. Battling daily between art and commerce, showrunners manage every aspect of a TV show’s development and production: creative, financial and logistical.

Brother's Keeper

This documentary by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky details the murder trial of Delbert Ward. Delbert was a member of a family of four elderly brothers, working as semi-literate farmers and living together in isolation from the rest of society until William's death.

Bambi: A Tale of Life in the Woods

The life of Bambi, a male roe deer, from his birth through childhood, the loss of his mother, the finding of a mate, the lessons he learns from his father, and the experience he gains about the dangers posed by human hunters in the forest.