This selection of short film touch on different themes including food systems, alternative agriculture, and humans’ relationship with animals. The films are available here for only 4 days till the 13th of December.

This page is part of the Meatless Monday project, which aims at encouraging people to reflect on the current food and agricultural models and the effect of meat production on the environment.

`73 Cows`

Alex Lockwood | 2018 | 15min | Documentary

Jay Wilde is a beef-farmer in the UK who struggles with the industry he feels trapped in. Being conscious about animals having feelings destroys him every time he sends a cow to an abattoir. This inspiring story shows that the transition to sustainable farming is possible and doesn’t have to involve animal exploitation. Jay is one of the first farmers in the UK to change to vegan organic agriculture, a way of farming that is sustainable for the animals, for the planet, and for his own mental well-being.

`Unbroken Ground | A New Way to Grow Food`

Chris Malloy | 2016 | 25min | Documentary

‘The agriculture revolution isn’t going to come through technology, it’s going to come through the old ways of doing things’. Instead of relying on pesticides, destroying the soil, the lands and the oceans, those farmers and fishermen found ways to regrow healthy soils and habitats. Believing that it’s our responsability to leave the land better than we found it is the key to a sustainable, healthy and respectful of the planet agriculture.

`The Shepherdess`

Katie Falkenerg | 2019 | 6min | Documentary

A brutal drought gripping the Southwest is hitting New Mexico and the Navajo reservation especially hard, threatening traditional shepherds and a pastoral way of life going back generations.

`From the Ground Up - Regenerative Agriculture`

Amny Browne | 2019 | 13min | Documentary

Regenerative agriculture is one of the most promising wide-scale environmental solutions. This short documentary is a comprehensive journey through a variety of landscapes and regenerative farming techniques. Inspired by Charles Massy’s best-selling book “Call of the Reed Warbler”, filmmaker Amy Browne set out across the dry farming country of South East NSW to meet Charles and the other innovative farmers bringing new life to their land. From the Ground Up is a story of genuine change and inspiration tracing the steps of individuals who transformed their practices following the life-changing realisation that farmers have a unique opportunity to restore the planet.

`Farmscape Ecology |Hope on the Hudson`

Ocean 8 Films | 2019 | 26min | Documentary

Healthy soil is a key to viable farming, and agriculture the way it is done in our current food system is destroying that soil and its biodiversity. Farming is bound to evolve towards more sustainable ways of working the land. This documentary depicts people willing to honour and repair the land by producing food, focusing on the link between nature and farming.

`SAMSARA food sequence`

Ron Fricke| 2011 | 6min excerpt | Documentary

What we consume has effects on our health, on the animals and on the environment. These are the reason why eating seasonal and as local as possible is so important. Our food systems are built on a robotized and brutalized way, which completely disconnect us from real and healthy food. Here are the undersides of how our food ends up on our plates.

`There is a monster in my kitchen`

Greenpeace | 2019 | 2min | Animation

The fight against climate change is in everyone’s hands. Our individual choices make the meat industry continue to thrive or not. The big global chains and companies deliberately keep on fuelling the problem, increasing the speed of deforestation, destroying the homes of animals but also of Indigenous People. Choosing to eat food that is respectful of the planet and its inhabitants can only be a step towards a more sustainable future.

`Food`

Siqi Song | 2014 | 3 min | Animation, Documentary

FOOD is an animated documentary that features interviews with a wide variety of eaters from around the world. Ranging from vegetarians, vegans, pescetarians to some seriously dedicated carnivores, the conversation raises many substantial issues about the environment and modern life. By pairing real interviews with stop-motion animation, the film presents a group of “edible characters” discussing themselves.

`Crannog`

Isa Rao | 2018 | 15min | Documentary

Alexis has a life-threatening disease. She spends her time in the wooded expanse of northern Scotland where she takes care of dozens of others who are also sick, wounded or dying. Some have terminal cancer, some were about to be killed because of their disabilities, some were saved from slaughterhouses. Alexis provides palliative care for animals. Crannog follows Alexis as she tirelessly tries to nurse a neglected sheep back to health. A quiet reflection on kindness in the face of death, the film intimately explores the fragility and strength that comes from dedicating your life to the care of others.

`Little Miss Piggy`

Ellen Vloet | 2013 | 18min | Documentary/Short Fiction

Eleven-year-old Brechtje lives on a pig farm. Compared to her classmates in the nearby village, she is a tomboy, used to living in the great outdoors and plowing through the fields in her rubber boots. She loves animals, and seeing them get killed breaks her heart. But on the farm, dozens of piglets are born every day that will be full-grown pigs in no time at all, ready to be slaughtered for their meat. For years, this has been a natural part of Brechtje’s life. But now that she is growing up, she is developing her own opinions and starting to rebel against the agrarian lifestyle. Whereas she used to think the pigs were cute, she now finds working in the stables boring and smelly. On top of that, her daily bicycle trips back and forth to school add to her sense of isolation. The nearest village is two kilometers away, so the farm is far removed from “real life”. Brechtje fantasizes about life in the big city, far away from the farm.

`Orphans of the Land`

Jessica Milgroom | 2017 | 30min | Documentary

All over the world governments are evicting people from their ancestral land to make room for ‘development’ projects, including nature conservation. The people displaced by these projects find themselves at the mercy of an imposed development paradigm and have little choice but to accept involuntary resettlement. Based on four years of research, this film transmits the lived experience of resettlement and rehabilitation. It puts names and faces to the people facing land dispossession carried out to promote tourism in the Limpopo National Park in Mozambique, Southern Africa. PEOPLE FACING RESETTLEMENT are filled with hope for a better life. Although some families find prosperity after resettlement, as ‘orphans of the land’, villages lose autonomy to control access to the natural resources on which their livelihoods and social cohesion depend. Resettled people cannot access the resources they need to cope with cyclical drought and climate variability.

`Seeds! A day without seeds`

Jennifer Dillon | 2019 | 9min | Documentary

It’s easy to imagine how different our life would be without water, but we don’t realize our dependence on seeds. Thor Hanson, the author of The Triumph of Seeds, challenges himself to live a day without any product that requires seeds. This short documentary shows how essential seeds are to our food system, but also to our daily life, sometimes in unexpected ways.

`Death of a Species`

Nicolas Pollock | 2020 | 12min | Documentary

Snails in Hawaii are disappearing faster than any animal on the planet. “This is happening so fast, it’s as if something really catastrophic is happening in the world right now,” says scientist Dave Sischo, who is fighting to save Hawaii’s snail populations.

`Bhutan: Land of the Black Necked Crane`

Greg Pope | 2011 | 15min | Documentary

In Bhutan, farmers still harvest their crops the way it has been done since thousands of years. By learning from the mistakes of many countries, Bhutan managed to conserve the environment, shutting out the outside world, and finding a balance between respect for the environment, and citizens’ hapiness, via the Growth National Hapiness. But the country will have to work hard to protect their tradition and their natural balance. The challenge is getting people to know that the environment is the basic fondation of their economy.