Reviewing a film that your good friend worked on can be a dicey situation. What if you don’t love the final result? What if you are critical of your friends work? Well, in full disclosure that is exactly what I chose to do here with Growing Cities, and I’m happy to report that I dodged the bullet and have very high praise for both the film and my friend’s work in it.
Growing Cities lives and dies on the people it interviews. The subjects. The workers on the front lines. What battle are they fighting? This is a film that explores urban farming, the need for diversified sources of food, and innovators all over the country who are planting and reaping in reclaimed and ruined urban spaces, providing food for folks who live amidst fresh food “deserts”.
The framing device of Growing Cities involves the two young filmmakers, Director Dan Susman, and writer/cinematographer Andrew Monbouquette, heading off on a roadtrip to visit different urban farm projects, explore what they are doing, what problems they are facing, and to dig into the history of agriculture in our country. A set up like this could go either way. A couple of upper middle class white kids from Omaha, NE on the road with a camera in their hands? Okay guys, impress us. Well, it turns out that these guys do a great job of finding fascinating interview subjects, highlighting urban farms around the country that are doing really new and exciting things, and getting deep into issues of justice and real, practical solutions. They are also bluntly honest about how effective or ineffective some of these programs can be in the larger picture.
None of this matters if you don’t know there is a problem that needs to be fixed. Growing Cities shows all kinds of interesting approaches to solving the problem of “food deserts”, large urban areas where fresh food is unavailable at a reasonable price, creating situations where whole urban communities are forced to eat processed and pre-packaged foods. The country’s obesity rates are skyrocketing and access to healthy food is becoming scarce even as giant, corporatized farming practices are on the rise. Susman and Monbouquette do a good job of educating their audience on the problems that we are facing with our fresh food even as they talk with the folks who are trying to fix the problems.
And like I said, Growing Cites’ subjects are the real delight of the movie. Are you totally new to the concept of urban gardening? Growing Cities will ease you in and explain the essentials to you without insulting your intelligence by introducing you to some projects going on in California (their first stop on their road trip). You’ll meet a man who was born with no fingers except thumbs, who has overcome that adversity and is raising goats, chickens, and all sorts of plant life in his own back yard. And you’ll see a farm and market that operates entirely on volunteers and gives away all of its food for free, removing capitalism from the process of being fed. Are you a full on urban farmer interested in some of the deeper issues of your chosen passion project? Then you’ll be introduced to some powerful programs through this film that will most likely challenge and engage you.
I myself rarely venture outdoors, was raised in the suburbs on fast food and instant meals, and have wrestled with what to do about my food-eating decisions as I’ve gotten more engaged in thinking about food distribution as a justice issue. And while I’m no urban farmer, and am still very wrapped up in the dominant system of food creation and distribution, I have been a part of an amazing project here in Austin, TX called Genesis Gardens, where I’ve been volunteering for about a year. Genesis Gardens employs formerly homeless men and women, engages the community with amazing volunteer projects, grows food, and ultimately will become a sustainable community providing affordable housing for formerly homeless folks and offering them jobs as farmers on their property. Watching this vision become reality and sticking my own hands into the soil and planting and reaping has been a hugely rewarding experience, and has exposed me to some of the deeper questions of the urban farming movement. Can this work? Will any of this really make a difference? Is the corporatized farming industry simply too entrenched to ever be changed for the better?
Growing Cities’ filmmakers do an excellent job of asking these kinds of hard questions of their subjects, and getting complex and honest answers from them. And at the same time, they find great human elements, highlighting individual lives that have been changed by specific programs in particular cities all over this country. I was a particularly big fan of Will Allen, the founder and CEO of Growing Power in Milwaukee. His operation is a network of farms, with one location feeding as many as 10,000 people. Will is an African American man who trains 1000 farmers a year, gives tours to ten times that many people, and is providing an incredible example of a great “food system for now, and the food system of the future”. Adapting specifically to his urban environment, Will is also using vertical spaces, growing food on shelved systems that are kind of brilliant. Will also notes, when asked by Susman, that doing away with the industrialized food system will take 50 million new farmers doing what he is doing. So… a total revolution will still take time.
I’ll briefly highlight a couple of other subjects and topics that really connected with me and made me believe in Growing Cities’ power as a documentary film. Hitting Chicago, our team visits the Growing Home program where Executive Director Harry Rhodes notes that they use urban farming as a tool to create jobs and break down employment barriers for people who have been previously addicted, incarcerated, or otherwise have trouble finding meaningful work. Interview subject Javier is very forthright in telling his own story of life in a gang, and how this program has changed his life and the lives of his young children. You can’t mess with the power of a personal story, and Javier is the most powerful human face of Growing Cities. After all, if you can change one life, isn’t it all worth it?
And finally, I was particularly taken with the operation in Detroit which our guys visited D-Town Farm and it’s founder Malik Yakini. Detroit has a unique issue of urban decay facing it. And Yakini is specifically addressing the health issues that this creates, and also specifically addressing the race implications of this problem. Yakini frankly discusses the fact that many urban farmers are young white folks who may be trying to help, but are often unaware of their inherent privilege. His Black Community Food Security Network is promoting healthy food intake while also meeting highly localized needs within the black community and empowering local people to work for their own benefit. Farming as taking the power back into their own hands. Yakini sees urban farming as one part of a larger movement of racial justice and equality, and I couldn’t help but be wowed by his operation and vision.
So Growing Cities takes what could have been a cute little project and makes itself into a vital piece of the food system conversation. The road trip conceit actually does expose viewers to local issues facing various urban farming projects and gets right down to the meat of how growing food can combat health, race, and poverty issues. No matter how interested or engaged you might be in urban farming or justice issues of any sort, I think Growing Cities can connect with you where you are and give you some new things to think about.
KICKSTARTER
Part of the impetus for writing about Growing Cities right now (even though I was always going to see this in order to hear my man Joel St. Julien’s original score which, in a shameless plug for my old friend, is actually a perfect electronic soundscape to accent this movie.) is due to the fact that Growing Cities has been approved for play on PBS, but they need to pay their own expenses to actually get it to air. They are running a Kickstarter right now that runs through Wednesday, July 9th, 2014. They need to raise $30,000 in order to cover all the costs associated with getting their documentary on the air with PBS. They explain it a lot better in their Kickstarter video below. So check that out if you think getting this message out to a national audience might be something worthwhile. Share this post or share their link if this is a subject you are passionate about. Their documentary is the real deal.
And I’m Out.