Looking for short farm/food films

April 21, 2011 11:46 AM

For a film festival focused on farms, food and food systems, I'm looking for short (under 45 minutes) films on those topics. Documentary, fiction or animated all acceptable. Any suggestions appreciated, especially with contact info or website links.
posted by beagle to Media & Arts (14 answers total)

I would look at the list of recommended online films and DVDs over at The Greenhorns (scroll down, on right). Can't vouch for the length of any of these, but the titles look like they match what you're looking for.
posted by MonkeyToes at 12:14 PM on April 21, 2011

One place to look might be projects already funded at Kickstarter, perhaps like this one. Some probably aren't completed, but you might get lucky.
posted by Glinn at 12:15 PM on April 21, 2011

King Corn is essentially the first book of the Omnivore's Dilemma filmed. Unfortunatley, I could not find contact info for the film makers.
posted by Verdant at 1:34 PM on April 21, 2011

Have a look at the Democratising agricultural research site -- lots of short videos there.
posted by cbrody at 2:41 PM on April 21, 2011

Poke around http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/, they've got some stuff.
posted by attercoppe at 2:53 PM on April 21, 2011

Two films that stood out for me from the 2010 Chicago Food Film Festival were The Perfect Oyster and Mr. Okra. Also Eat Your Fill, for which I didn't find a good link. It follows a man as he sets out to eat everything deep fried or on a stick at the Wisconsin State Fair. Maybe not what you're looking for, but very entertaining.
posted by hydrophonic at 3:02 PM on April 21, 2011

It's a feature, but The Real Dirt on Farmer John got a lot of buzz.
posted by hydrophonic at 3:14 PM on April 21, 2011

The Natural history of the chicken
posted by mearls at 3:53 PM on April 21, 2011

Hybrid was also good, although maybe too long for your purposes.
posted by xil at 6:36 PM on April 21, 2011

The Greenhorns list is good. There is also the Greenhorns movie itself: trailer, 20-minute cut.
posted by librarina at 8:39 PM on April 21, 2011

Media That Matters has a collection of shorts about food and sustainability.
posted by amyms at 9:00 PM on April 21, 2011

A PDF from Small Planet that lists food and farming movies.
posted by leastlikelycowgirl at 9:11 PM on April 21, 2011

The Southern Foodways Alliance has some films available on their website. I bought a few and downloaded others, but haven't gotten around to watching them yet. They all look fascinating.

I did see Garden Stories, a film about urban gardening in Detroit.

There are a few Les Blank films about food subjects and I've heard high praise for some of them.

There's good stuff on Youtube. I have a playlist of food clips. Most of them are just a couple minutes long. I've thought about a food film festival and little clips like this would be great to show before longer works.
posted by stuart_s at 9:28 PM on April 21, 2011

Here are a couple more that I've been meaning to watch:

Tacos or Tacos

In Queso Fever: A Movie About Cheese Dip

Also, the Vendy award website has videos, doesn't it? The site is down now, but I think this is their Youtube account and they have some clips that run a couple minutes each.
posted by stuart_s at 12:13 PM on April 23, 2011