Documentary
The Colorado River is the foundation of the American Southwest. But the confluence of a once-in-a-millennium drought, a hundred-year-old mistake, and a generations-old conflict have put the river-–and the civilization built atop it––in crisis, and at a crossroads. As the…


Narrator

Ferial has lived in La Dauphine, an old Provençal countryside located on the foothills of the Alps, with Philippe and their three sons for over 20 years. Daughter of a German woman and a Palestinian man, born in Jordan, Ferial sees in this place where she lives today the realization of a strange dream she had when she was still living in Jordan with her parents many years ago. In this dream, Ferial found herself isolated on a small island lost in the middle of the ocean. On this island, there was a blue tree on which three blue birds were perched. She never forgot this dream.

The Green Desert presents a dazzling kaleidoscope of vineyards, date ranches, and bell pepper farms in the Coachella Valley near the Salton Sea. The much larger Imperial Valley harvests leafy greens by the truckload, delivering over 1 billion servings a year. The alfalfa it grows is the bedrock of the food supply chain, making dairy and meat production possible. A total of 90% of the winter vegetables consumed in the US are produced in these two regions. Without them, the nation’s food security would vanish. Both of these regions rely on imported Colorado River water, a resource dwindling by the year. The need for conservation has never been greater, but will desperate measures be enough? The era of limits has been reached. We are at a crossroads. The future of the American West will be shaped by the choices we make.

Gimme Green is a humorous look at the American obsession with the residential lawn and the effects it has on our environment, our wallets and our outlook on life. From the limitless subdivisions of Florida to sod farms in the arid southwest, Gimme Green peers behind the curtain of the $40-billion industry that fuels our nation's largest irrigated crop-the lawn.

Composed of intimate and unencumbered moments of people in a community, this film is constructed in a form that allows the viewer an emotive impression of the Historic South - trumpeting the beauty of life and consequences of the social construction of race, while simultaneously a testament to dreaming.