Best of the Fest films for the week of March 4

The Fri­day Har­bor Film Fes­ti­val’s Best of the Fest series presents one fea­ture-length doc­u­men­tary along­side short­er doc­u­men­tary films each week. The films are streamed on demand. For the week of March 4, FHFF is show­ing The Ants and the Grasshop­per and Farm to Restau­rant to Table: The Sto­ry of Stand Up for Lopez, a Pan­dem­ic Food Secu­ri­ty Pro­gram.

FHFF shared with the Update a pre­view of each film.

The Ants and the Grasshopper

Ani­ta Chi­taya has a gift — she can help bring abun­dant food from dead soil, she can make men fight for gen­der equal­i­ty, and she can end child hunger in her vil­lage. Now, to save her home from extreme weath­er, she faces her great­est chal­lenge: per­suad­ing Amer­i­cans that cli­mate change is real.

Trav­el­ing from Malawi to Cal­i­for­nia to the White House, she meets cli­mate scep­tics and despair­ing farm­ers. Her jour­ney takes her across all the divi­sions shap­ing the U.S., from the rur­al-urban divide to schisms of race, class, and gen­der, to the think­ing that allows Amer­i­cans to believe we live on a dif­fer­ent plan­et from every­one else. It will take all her skill and expe­ri­ence to per­suade us that we’re all in this together.

This doc­u­men­tary, ten years in the mak­ing, weaves togeth­er the most urgent themes of our times: cli­mate change, gen­der and racial inequal­i­ty, the gaps between the rich and the poor, and the ideas that groups around the world have gen­er­at­ed to save the planet.

Farm to Restaurant to Table: The Story of Stand Up for Lopez, a Pandemic Food Security Program

In March of 2020, as the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic took hold, Lopez Island Fam­i­ly Resource Cen­ter (LIFRC) under­took an ini­tia­tive to ensure that every islander’s basic needs were being met. With a focus on food secu­ri­ty, LIFRC formed a col­lab­o­ra­tion of for­ward-think­ing donors, island food providers, and vol­un­teers. This is the remark­able sto­ry of Stand Up for Lopez.

Tick­ets for both films can be pur­chased through the FHFF web­site.

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