L'Amour vache

In 1984, eleven miners entrenched themselves underground to protest for better working conditions in the mining village of Almaden in southern Spain. The strike, deep within the toxic mercury mine, lasted for eleven long days, during which the whole village showed its solidarity with the men protesting underground. The mine was the heart of Almaden, around which everything revolved – until it longer existed. The mercury mine was closed for good at the beginning of the 21st century. As a consequence, the area has experienced mass unemployment and slow decline.

The documentary takes the viewer to the Polish countryside of the mid-1970s. Andrzej, Leszek, Eugeniusz, Ryszard and Jerzy are young men who dream of finding their other half. The film's protagonists have advertised in newspapers and talk frankly and without inhibition about their search and the dilemmas it involves. The picture is complemented by the statements of their parents, who watch their sons' efforts to start a family with love but also concern. The film also gives an insight into the problems farmers face - not only love but also hard work on the land awaits the chosen one of their hearts. "Either get married or quit this farm", "What's one to do on a farm?" - say the characters in the film. The countryside is not a place made for living alone.

Two sides of Mysore: down to earth with the field workers and an Indian spectacle for the Maharaja.

The follow-up film to “Barstow, California” takes us to the mountains of Miyama, a remote forest and tourist area north of Kyoto. Uwe Walter, a shakuhachi player from Germany, lives there with his wife Mitsuyo for 30 years. Together with the villagers he prepares the annual Gion Festival. On the eve of the festival, the village representatives tell him that his self-built studio is to be demolished. This brings back memories for him of earlier times and his first steps as a Nō actor. In the manner of a fresco, the film interweaves rural depictions of everyday life with the story of its German protagonist. In the village community with its togetherness of generations, Uwe shares life with his neighbours, with farmers, hunters, woodsmen, poultry farmers and anglers, tills his kitchen garden, and like other tradition-conscious villagers, he also grows his rice. The film shows them in a harsh mountain landscape between the rainy season and the first snow.

The camera falls in love with the characters, the landscape and the objects and is installed with the tenderness that inoculates the life of the town itself. The camera is the thousand eyes of the gaze of a rigorous anthropologist, although in love, multiplying so as not to lose detail in 24 hours of people, activity, games, intimacy ... Recording every sound that pierces the oceanic silence of the countryside open.And night comes. And the gazpacho. And the party. You see.

Three farming families in Hanyuan, China, strive to give their children a good life in the midst of an ecological crisis, as widespread use of pesticides leads to a dramatic decline in bees and other pollinating insects in the valley.

Family farmers in southwest France practice an ancestral way of life under threat in a world increasingly dominated by large-scale industrial agriculture.

For centuries, rice farmers on the island of Bali have taken great care not to offend Dewi Danu, the water goddess who dwells in the crater lake near the peak of Batur volcano. Through an analysis of ritual, resource management practices (planting schedules, irrigation vs. conservation, etc) and social organization, anthropologist Steve Lansing and ecologist James Kremer discover the intricacy and sustainability of this ancient water management agricultural system.

Within the last half century, our agriculture and food has changed more than it has changed before in several thousand years. New technologies and scientific ingenuity have given rise to genetically modified organisms (GMO) and other novel foods. Some people have raised concerns about the safety of GMOs in our food supply, given their incredible dominance in the majority of our diet. Traditional, organic farmers, have consistently been under attack by large corporate farming interests, who seek to dominate the food industry and run family farms out of business. This film looks at our current food system as well as a variety of smaller, organic options available to consumers who want to support sustainable farming methods.

Is there a mental health crisis in agriculture in Colorado? Farming and ranching has become increasingly difficult over the years. An industry that is typically viewed as romantic, hardworking, and "salt-of-the earth" is actually a job full of tremendous stress outside of anyone's control. Combine that with the enormous generational pressure to continue the family farm, and you have a large group of people that are suffering silently. How do we take care of those that are taking care of us?

Three family-owned farms on the Delmarva Peninsula and their success using practices that protect and promote healthy soil; practices that also safeguard working lands against the extremes posed by climate change.