No Land No Food No Life

All was well for many generations, when local farmers working in fertile regions of developing countries could subsist on their own produce. They kept livestock on their expansive plots of land and grew a variety of crops, and there were often surpluses that they could sell to pay for their children’s schooling. Filmmaker Amy Miller demonstrates that this situation is now drastically changed, and similar situations can be found in one village after the other in Mali, Uganda and Cambodia. All the farmers there have been banished from their land by huge agricultural companies with international investors. Governments consistently give these companies the green light and help them take over the territory. “We would never give up our land. It would be like selling our souls. It would be like dying,” says a combative Malian woman who witnessed her land being seized forcibly by a deployment of 120 policemen. This socio-critical film alternates interviews with the farmers, the usurpers and other interested parties with scenes of demonstrations and conferences of a grassroots activist movement. Voice-over narration and plain animations combine to create a historical context and highlight a distressing situation that only exacerbates the food and climate crises. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)