Festival delle terre, the independent documentary review on agriculture, rights and migrations: 17 screenings in 4 thematic days

ROME – From 10 to 13 May the International Crossroads Center launches a new edition of the Festival of the Lands, the review of the independent documentary on the themes of peasant agriculture, social struggles, rights and migrations. In the two rooms of the Archive-Mediatheque of Lands of Crossroads, in the Casa del Parco delle Energie in via Prenestina 175, in Rome, it will be possible to attend (admission is free) the screening of 17 documentaries over 4 thematic days: “resistant lands”, “native peoples”, “gender question” and “food sovereignty”. The program is completed by 5 meetings including book presentations, debates and open meetings of activists.

Jobs from all over the world. The works presented at the Festival come from all over the world – explains Danilo Licciardello, artistic director and partner of Crossroads – We edit a version subtitled in Italian, available to the authors, to allow the film to reach an ever wider audience and not to alter the testimonies brought to the screen. We give space to the works of small independent productions, which struggle to find a place in a commercial circuit that does not always reward quality. We promote meetings with the authors of the films, who often participate personally in the days of the Festival”. Here the program of the Festival

Italian premieres and award-winning documentaries. The 2023 edition sees, among the most interesting titles, two Italian premieres: “Seeds: Black Women in Power” (2020, Brazil, 105 min), scheduled for May 10 at 8 pm. The documentary, made by directors Éthel Oliveira and Júlia Mariano, recounts the role of the feminist struggle in the dramatic context in which the 2018 elections took place in Brazil, with the rise of Jair Bolsonaro and the assassination of Marielle Franco. From the United States comes the second preview of the Festival, a documentary entitled “Rock Steady Farm”, (2023, USA, 23 min) from the name of the homonymous agricultural cooperative founded in 2015 and managed by a queer collective in the state of New York, whose objectives are social justice, access to quality food for all and the training of new farmers.

Extractive industries and human rights. The picture is completed by numerous high quality productions, such as “Vento na Fronteira” (2022, Brazil, 75′). Screened in Rome at the RIFF festival, where it received a special mention, and awarded at the Terra di Tutti Festival, the documentary was shot by Laura Faerman and Marina Weis on the border between Brazil and Paraguay, in the indigenous territory disputed between the indigenous Guarani-Kaiowá people and farmers industrial. It provides a disturbing cross-section of the combination of racism, extractivism and human rights violations that has characterized Brazil in recent years.

The first Academy Award nominated documentary. Able to collect around thirty awards in just two years, “Writing with fire” (2021, India, 92 min) is another documentary of particular interest proposed by the Festival delle Terre 2023. The directors Sushmit Ghosh and Rintu Thomas narrate the story of journalists who manage the Khabar Lahariya newspaper in the transition to digital after 14 years of print media. Fun fact: it was the first Indian documentary to be nominated for an Academy Award. Finally, the vision of “Too Much Democracy” (2022, India, 90 min) is recommended, an extraordinary story by Varrun Sukhraj of the 16 months of continuous protest by Indian farmers between 2020 and 2021: a mobilization born to contest the attempt by the government of Narendra Modi to liberalize agricultural prices and turned into what has been called “the biggest strike in the history of humanity”. The list of documentaries with description can be consulted through this link

The meetings. Alongside the screenings, the festival program also includes 5 thematic meetings. On May 10, the opening day, a round table is scheduled at 5 pm entitled:

– “Female migrations: a story (deliberately kept silent)”. Speakers will be Laura Schettini, professor of “History of Women and Gender” at the University of Padua and Francesca de Masi, of the Befree Cooperative.

– On May 11, however, still at 18:30, the debate will be held “Food sovereignty in the era of commodity food”, which will revolve around the presentation of the latest book by Mauro Conti, researcher and former president of Crocevia, entitled “Transnational agricultural movements and global governance” and just published by Rosenberg & Sellier.

– On May 12, at 7 pm, it will be the turn of the meeting “Puglia: the struggle for land between industrial agriculture and the climate crisis”, in which the experiences of the Casa delle Agriculture and the libertarian Municipality of Urupia will be compared, with Carlotta Gasperini, Camilla Petruzzella and Tiziana Colluto. In remote connection Alessandra Coppola, author of the film “La restanza”, which will be screened in the evening.

– The last meeting, entitled “The struggles of the climate justice movements” is scheduled for 13 May (final day of the Festival delle Terre) at 17:30 and will see a confrontation between student collectives such as Cambiare Rotta, youth movements such as Fridays For Future, Extinction Rebellion, Ultima Generazione and local committees such as the Forum Parco delle Energie . In parallel, the debate “Palestine today. Stories of resistance and repression”, with Romana Rubeo of “The Palestine Chronicle” and Eliana Riva, journalist of “Pagine Esteri” and collaborator of Rai Storia.

The Archive-Mediatheque of the Lands. It is the multimedia archive of International Crossroads Center, a collection of nearly 2,000 audiovisuals, photographs, slides, teaching aids, CDs and CD-Roms, available to anyone interested in learning more about the issues of international solidarity, agroecology and human rights. This heritage has been built on decades of cooperation projects with countries of the Global South. In its solidarity activities, Crocevia has also carried out communication projects, with the aim of providing communities with new means of offering their point of view, so as to regain the right to self-representation, skipping the filter of the Western gaze.

Rare and exclusive content. For this reason, the contents of the Archive-Mediatheque are even more rare and exclusive. From 26 November 2021 the Archive has a new headquarters in Rome, at the Parco delle Energie, in via Prenestina, 175. Here today we find folders and audiovisual supports, housed in the premises of the “Maria Baccante” Territorial Documentation Center. With the Forum of the Energy Park, a network of citizens’ committees that has taken to heart and obtained the protection of this urban park threatened by speculation, Crocevia and the Media Library have activated a stable collaboration in the promotion of awareness-raising and counter-information activities.

The International Crossroads Center. It is the oldest secular NGO in Italy, founded in 1958. After decades of international cooperation projects of a more “classic” nature, in the last thirty years Crocevia’s mission has been transformed: the association supports global dialogue and the organization of peasant movements and small food producers in general, helping to bring their battles for food sovereignty to the highest levels of international governance, such as the institutions of the United Nations and in particular of the FAO. In Italy, Crocevia is active with projects and campaigns to promote agroecology, counter the spread of GMOs, defend peasant seed systems and assert farmers’ rights to seeds. To all this is added the commitment in the field of culture and awareness, through the care and promotion of the Archive-Mediatheque of the Lands and the Festival of the Lands.