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The Ants and the Grasshopper

How do you change someone’s mind about the most important thing in the world?

Anita Chitaya has a gift; she can help bring abundant food from dead soil, she can make men fight for gender equality, and she can end child hunger in her village. Now, to save her home from extreme weather, she faces her greatest challenge: persuading Americans that climate change is real. Traveling from Malawi to California to the White House, she meets climate sceptics and despairing farmers. Her journey takes her across all the divisions shaping the US, from the rural-urban divide, to schisms of race, class and gender, to the thinking that allows Americans to believe they live on a different planet from everyone else. It will take all her skill and experience to help Americans recognize, and free themselves from, a logic that is already destroying the Earth.

Filmmakers

Cinematography

Clare Major
Peter Mazunda

Original Score

Graham Reynolds

Field Producer (Oakland)

Cathy Fischer

Field Producers (Midwest)

Andrew Funkhouser
Stephanie Smith

Field Producer (NY)

Sean Lyness

Location Sound

Zak Piper

Additional Camera

Anita Chitaya
Jackson James

Additional Location Sound

Rich Pooler
Greg Miller
Paul Rusnak
Mark Haygen
Eric Reeves
JT Takagi

Additional Editing

Mina Fitzpatrick
Ingrid Roettgen
Carlos Corva

Post Production Supervisor

Matt Taylor

Assistant Editors

Pedro Urgiles
Tony Costello
Ryan Gleeson

Featured

Anita Chitaya, Activist/Farmer/Teacher (Soils Food and Healthy Communities)
Rachel Bezner Kerr, Co-founder (Soils Food and Healthy Communities)
Esther Lupafya, Co-founder (Soils Food and Healthy Communities)
Black Dirt Farm Collective
Malik Yakini (D-Town Farm)
Denise O’Brien (Women Food and Agriculture Network)
Jocelyn Jackson (People's Kitchen Collective)
Jim Goodman (National Family Farm Coalition)
Presbyterian Hunger Program
Brahm Ahmadi (Community Foods Market, Oakland)
Jim Goodman (La Via Campesina)
Valerie Segrest (The Muckleshoot Food Sovereignty Project)

Media

Awards and Distinctions

American Conservation Film Festival

Winner

Green Fire Award

2022

KDocsFF

Official Selection

2022

ReFrame Film Festvial

Official Selection

2022

Toronto Black Film Festival

Official Selection

2022

Transitions Film Festival

Official Selection

2022

Wild & Scenic Film Festival

Winner

Jury Award

2022

ALT EFF

Official Selection

2021

Ashland Independent Film Festival

Official Selection

2021

Buffalo International Film Festival

Official Selection

2021

Centre Film Festival

Winner

Best Feature

2021

Food Film Festival

Official Selection

2021

Human Rights Festival (Berlin)

Official Selection

2021

Middlebury New Filmmakers Film Festival

Winner

Gaia Prize for Environmental Filmmaking

2021

Mountainfilm Festival

Winner

Moving Mountains Award

2021

NHdocs: New Haven Documentary Film Festival

Official Selection

2021

Princeton Environmental Film Festival

Official Selection

2021

Sheffield Doc/Fest

Official Selection

2021

South Asian Film Festival

Official Selection

2021

Three Rivers Film Festival

Official Selection

2021