CHANGE! AERA STAGE :-)

This is a Story about Water / Esta é uma História sobre Água

Portuguese/English film, with subtitles, 26 minutes.

Directed and produced by Kathleen Harris and Samuel Viana

Synopsis
This short documentary (English/Portuguese, 26 min) explores the impacts of industrial agriculture and a changing climate on a rural community in southern Portugal, where multinationals grow berries bound for supermarkets across the UK and Europe.

We meet local farmers as they compete with these multinationals for water resources. Migrant workers as they struggle with low wages, crowded accommodation and integration. A primary school teacher as she helps children of migrants, who only speak Nepali, Urdu or Hindi, adapt to the Portuguese curriculum. A scientist as she condemns the expansion of greenhouses - and their use of pesticides and fertilisers - into what is meant to be a Natura 2000 haven for some of Europe’s most threatened species and habitats.

Activists and artists who protest what they see as a threat to both people and nature. And the berry producers themselves, who must manipulate their plants to grow in a way that optimizes the harvest, for both people and profits. This mosaic of voices shows some of the complex social, political and environmental knock-on effects of our global food system on various communities in the Alentejo.

Teaser https://vimeo.com/867442616

If you want to screen: Get in touch with documentary maker sam_viana@yahoo.com