Saturday, February 11, 2012

The #EatOrganic Film List


Food Inc. 
Food, Inc. is a 2008 American documentary film directed by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Robert Kenner. The film examines corporate farming in the United States, concluding that agribusiness produces food that is unhealthy, in a way that is environmentally harmful and abusive of both animals and employees. The film is narrated by Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser.

Food Beware 
Food Beware begins with a visit to a small village in France, where the town's mayor has decided to make the school lunch menu organic and locally grown. It then talks to a wide variety of people with differing perspectives to find common ground - children, parents, teachers, health care workers, farmers, elected officials, scientists, researchers and the victims of illnesses themselves. Revealed in these moving and often surprising conversations are the abuses of the food industry, the competing interests of agribusiness and public health, the challenges and rewards of safe food production, and the practical, sustainable solutions that we can all take part in. Food Beware is food for thought - and a blueprint for a growing revolution.

The Future Of Food
The Future of Food is a 2004 American documentary film which makes an in-depth investigation into unlabelled, patented, genetically engineered foods that have made their way onto grocery stores in the United States for the past decade. In addition to the US there is a focus on Canada and Mexico.

FoodMatters
Food Matters is a 2008 documentary film about nutrition, exploring malnutrition and cancer causes. The film is presented in the style of a documentary, containing interviews, animations, and footage of various therapies and practices. The film presents the thesis that a selective diet can play a key role in treating a range of health conditions such as diabetes, cancer, heart disease and depression, often without the need of medical treatment. Furthermore, it tends to label the medical industry as a "sickness industry" profiting from sickness as opposed to health, and goes up to the point of accusing the medical and pharmaceutical industries of a conspiracy to perpetuate poor health, and thus, maximise their profit.

Forks Over Knives
Forks Over Knives is a 2011 American documentary film directed by Lee Fulkerson, an American independent filmmaker. The film examines the "profound claim that most, if not all, of the degenerative diseases that afflict us can be controlled, or even reversed, by rejecting our present menu of animal-based and processed foods," principally by tracing the careers and research of American physician Caldwell Esselstyn and professor of nutritional biochemistry T. Colin Campbell

King Corn
King Corn is a feature documentary film released in October 2007 following college friends Ian Cheney and Curtis Ellis (directed by Aaron Woolf) as they move from Boston to Greene, Iowa to grow and farm an acre of corn. In the process, Cheney and Ellis examine the role that the increasing production of corn has had for American society, spotlighting the role of government subsidies in encouraging the huge amount of corn grown

Fed Up
Fed Up! tackles the increasingly important issue of genetically modified foods with an uncommon balance of humor and depth, answering prevalent questions about the genetic engineering of common foods, the development of modern agribusiness, the threat of genetic pollution, and many other topics with an entertaining yet informative approach. The award-winning
documentary features in-depth interviews with distinguished scientists and experts. Fed Up! also addresses environmentally sound alternatives to agribusiness and industrial food, introducing viewers to Bay Area organic farmers, community supported agriculture organizations (CSAs) and food advocates who propose more sustainable approaches.

Deconstructing Supper
Renowned chef John Bishop leads viewers on an eye-opening and engaging journey into the billion-dollar battle to control global food production. Starting with a gourmet meal in his five-star restaurant, Bishop travels the world—from farmer's fields to biotech laboratories to supermarket aisles—on a personal quest to find out what our food choices are.

Life Running Out Of Control
GMOs are Genetically Modified Organisms which have made their debut in plants like corn and soybean, but are now in animals for consumption. The controversy of corporations owning "life-forms" and pushing GMOs in 3rd world countries comes to a head in India and Canada in this film. The battle between the corporations and the farmers/naturalists is in full swing with the corporations saying they are improving upon Nature with size and resistance to disease of the new organism. Farmers and naturalist activists say this is not as simple as an Oil spill where eventually the harm from the spill will be overcome by time's healing powers. GMOs on the other hand may destroy the very ecosystem forever, because these new lifeforms replicate as does all life.

Ingredients
Ingredients: The Local Food Movement Takes Root is a 2009 documentary film about the shortcomings of America's industrialized food system against a rising local food movement, whose proponents are shrinking the gap between farmland and dinner table. The film is directed by Robert Bates, produced by Brian Kimmel (The Kitchen Sessions with Charlie Trotter) and narrated by actress Bebe Neuwirth.
Chefs Alice Waters, Peter Hoffman, Kathy Whims, and Greg Higgins share their views as growers, restaurateurs, and consumers around the country, from Willamette Valley, Oregon to the urban food desert Harlem, New York, discuss their methods for bringing food production back home. Other participants from the Portland, Oregon area include Will Newman (Oregon Sustainable Agriculture Land Trust co-founder) and wife Susan Clark of Natural Harvest Farm, Ken Gordon of Kenny & Zuke's Delicatessen, and his wife permaculturist Leslee Lewis.

Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead
100 pounds overweight, loaded up on steroids and suffering from a debilitating autoimmune disease, Joe Cross is at the end of his rope and the end of his hope. In the mirror he saw a 310lb man whose gut was bigger than a beach ball and a path laid out before him that wouldn't end well- with one foot already in the grave, the other wasn't far behind. FAT, SICK & NEARLY DEAD is an inspiring film that chronicles Joe's personal mission to regain his health. With doctors and conventional medicines unable to help long-term, Joe turns to the only option left, the body's ability to heal itself. He trades in the junk food and hits the road with juicer and generator in tow, vowing only to drink fresh fruit and vegetable juice for the next 60 days. Across 3,000 miles Joe has one goal in mind: To get off his pills and achieve a balanced lifestyle. While talking to more than 500 Americans about food, health and longevity, it's at a truck stop in Arizona where Joe meets a truck driver who suffers from the same rare condition. Phil Staples is morbidly obese weighing in at 429 lbs; a cheeseburger away from a heart-attack. As Joe is recovering his health, Phil begins his own epic journey to get well. What emerges is nothing short of amazing - an inspiring tale of healing and human connection. Part road trip, part self-help manifesto, FAT, SICK & NEARLY DEAD defies the traditional documentary format to present an unconventional and uplifting story of two men from different worlds who each realize that the only person who can save them is themselves.

Whats On Your Plate?
What's On Your Plate is a witty and provocative documentary produced and directed by award-winning Catherine Gund about kids and food politics. Filmed over the course of one year, the film follows two eleven-year-old multi-racial city kids as they explore their place in the food chain. Sadie and Safiyah take a close look at food systems in New York City and its surrounding areas. With the camera as their companion, the girl guides talk to each other, food activists, farmers, new friends, storekeepers, their families, and the viewer, in their quest to understand what’s on all of our plates.

The Beautiful Truth
A troubled 15-year-old boy attempting to cope with the recent death of his mother sets out to research Dr. Max Gerson's claims of a diet that can cure cancer as his first assignment for home-schooling in this documentary from filmmaker Steve Kroschel (Avalanche, Dying to Have Known). Garrett is a boy who has always been close to nature. He lives on a reserve with a menagerie of orphaned animals, and over the years he's become especially sensitive to the nutritional needs of the diet-sensitive animals he's charged with caring for. When Garrett's mother suffers a tragic and untimely death, the boy falls into a dangerous downward spiral and nearly flunks out of school. Increasingly concerned for Garrett's well-being and determined to strengthen their bond despite the many challenges on the horizon, his father makes the decision to begin home-schooling the distressed teen. Garrett's first assignment: study a controversial book written by Dr. Max Gerson, a physician who claims to have discovered a diet that's capable of curing cancer. Is Dr. Gerson's therapy truly the legitimate, alternative cure it appears to be? In order to find out the truth behind this long-suppressed treatment, Garrett interviews not only Dr. Gerson's family members, but various doctors, skeptics, and cancer patients as well. His studies completed and his findings revelatory, Garrett now sets out to tell the entire world about The Gerson Miracle. 

The Gerson Miracle
In 1928, Dr. Max Gerson, a German-Jewish researcher, stumbled upon a therapy that has cured tens of thousands of people worldwide since then, including patients's previously thought incurable by their doctors. For the first time, this film chronicles the epic true story of Gerson's miracle.

Dying To Know
In Dying To Have Known, filmmaker Steve Kroschel went on a 52-day journey to find evidence to the effectiveness of the Gerson Therapy – a long-suppressed natural cancer cure.
His travels take him across both the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans, from upstate New York to San Diego to Alaska, from Japan and Holland to Spain and Mexico. In the end, he presents the testimonies of patients, scientists, surgeons and nutritionists who testify to the therapy’s efficacy in curing cancer and other degenerative diseases, and presents the hard scientific proof to back up their claims. You will hear from a Japanese medical school professor who cured himself of liver cancer over 15 years ago, a lymphoma patient who was diagnosed as terminal over 50 years ago as well as noted critics of this world-renowned healing method who dismiss it out of hand as pure quackery. So the question that remains is, Why is this powerful curative therapy still suppressed, more than 75 years after it was clearly proven to cure degenerative disease? The viewers are left to decide for themselves.

A River Of Waste
A heart-stopping new documentary, A River Of Waste exposes a huge health and environmental scandal in our modern industrial system of meat and poultry production.  The damage documented in today's factory farms far exceeds the damage that was depicted in Upton Sinclair's novel, The Jungle, a book written over 100 years ago. Some scientists have gone so far as to call the condemned current factory farm practices as "mini Chernobyls."

Sick Around America
As the worsening economy leads to massive job losses—potentially forcing millions more Americans to go without health insurance Frontline travels the country examining the nation's broken health care system and explores the need for a fundamental overhaul. Veteran Frontline producer Jon Palfreman dissects the private insurance system, a system that not only fails to cover 46 million Americans but also leaves millions more underinsured and at risk of bankruptcy.

Sick Around The World
It's no secret that the subject of health care is a hot-button issue in the United States, but would it be possible to improve our health care system by looking to other countries for inspiration? This is the question asked by T.R. Reid, a veteran foreign correspondent for The Washington Post and a concerned American who has taken it upon himself to explore out the most effective health care systems from capitalist democracies across the world. In this documentary, Reid travels to the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Taiwan, and Switzerland in order to contrast and compare their health care systems what that of the United States'. The result is an eye-opening look at the many ways in which a country can care for its citizens. In Germany, the country often credited with creating the concept of a universal health care system, the rich help to pay for the poor and the healthy contribute to cover the ill. But while this system may seem ideal to some, it does get a bit more complicated: Medical providers must negotiate standard coverage process with the government on an annual basis, and doctors in Germany only earn between half and two-thirds the incomes of their U.S. counterparts. Japan boasts the world's best health care statistics, but citizens are ordered by law to purchase health insurance and insurers aren't allowed to make a profit. As Reid makes his way around the world, he begins to wonder if the U.S. couldn't take a tip from Taiwan - a country that looked offshore for inspiration on creating a more effective national healthcare system.

Generation RX
For decades, scores of doctors, government officials, journalists, and others have extolled the benefits of psychiatric medicines for children. GENERATION RX presents "the rest of the story" and unveils how this era of unprecedented change in Western culture really occurred - and what price has been paid by our society. International award-winning filmmaker Kevin P. Miller (Let Truth Be The Bias, The Promised Land) "delivers a jaw-dropping emotional ride," and "weaves a terrifying tale of criminal conspiracy, the mass abandonment of medical ethics, and the routine betrayal of an entire generation." By employing the expertise of internationally respected professionals from the fields of medicine, ethics, journalism, and academia, GENERATION RX investigates collusion between drug companies and their regulatory watchdogs at the FDA and focuses on the powerful stories of real families who followed the advice of their doctors - and faced devastating consequences for doing so. GENERATION RX is a film about families who confronted horror and found nowhere to turn for help - and how scores of children have been caught in the vortex of mind-bending drugs at the earliest stages of their growth and development. This powerful documentary also questions whether we have forced millions of children onto pharmaceutical drugs for commercial rather than scientific reasons. Ultimately, Generation RX may help parents decide whether the perceived benefits of these medications outweigh the serious risks to children.


The Vaccine War
In The Vaccine War, Frontline lays bare the science of vaccine safety and examines the increasingly bitter debate between the public health establishment and a formidable populist coalition of parents, celebrities, politicians and activists who are armed with the latest social media tools -- including Facebook, YouTube and Twitter -- and are determined to resist pressure from the medical and public health establishments to vaccinate, despite established scientific consensus about vaccine safety.

Save The Farm
Save The Farm tells the story of the largest urban farm in the United States, 14-acres sitting right in the middle of South Central Los Angeles. For 14 years over 350 families had cultivated this farm, feeding themselves and thousands in their community local organic food. When the city sells it to a developer in a closed-door meeting, activists and celebrities stage an 11th hour tree sit to save the farm. As the 5-year anniversary of the eviction approaches, director Michael Kuehnert demonstrates how a local community can come together to fight to save a farm they have come to depend on for their survival.

Bananas!
Nicaraguan Laborers are paying a high price to get cheap bananas onto the world's tables, and a lawyer Juan Dominguez wants to do something about it.

Food Fight
Discover the problems in today's food system in this profile of Chef Alice Water' efforts to promote local, organic and sustainable agriculture.

The Medicated Child
This fascinating program from PBS's Frontline series explores the increasingly frequent prescription of behavior modifying medication for children.

Frankensteer
With the beef industry focused cutting manufacturing costs, this eye opening documentary investigates the health dangers posed by feedlot raised beef.

Hungry For Change
This documentary exposes shocking secrets he diet, weight loss, and food industries use to keep consumers coming back for more.

Forks Over Knives Extended Interviews
This companion to the acclaimed documentary about veganism includes additional footage of expert interviews, covering several them in greater depth.

Vegucated
This documentary follows three meat and cheese loving new yorkers who argue to adopt a vegan diet for six weeks in an effort to get healthier.

Farmageddon
This provocative documentary tells the story of farms that were providing safe, healthy foods to their communities but were forced to stop.

Genetic Chile
This illuminating documentary sizes up the state of genetically modified foods by zooming in on the prized New Mexico Chili Pepper, a poster child for both genetic engineering advocates and opponents of the practice.

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