Not long ago we reported on an in-progress documentary on the subject of GMOs, being made by filmmaker Jeremy Seifert. The genesis of the film was Jeremy’s reading of a news item that Haitians were protesting in the streets against Monsanto’s offer of earthquake relief in the form of 475 tons of genetically modified seed; it intrigued him enough to go down to Haiti and film the protesters. When he returned, he discovered that the majority of the American public were completely unaware of GMOs and the fact that biotech alterations were in most of our processed food. Thus Jeremy began his yet-unnamed film about GMOs and their impact.
The documentary is proceeding well, and Jeremy recently sat down with Organic Connections to update us on its progress and some of the fascinating footage he has now captured. “I think it’s coming along really well,” Jeremy reported. “Some of the key elements that I imagined about a year ago have now come to pass, and the footage looks great.”
Svalbard Global Seed Vault
Jeremy originally planned a trip to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway. Located on the island of Spitsbergen in the remote Arctic Svalbard archipelago, the facility preserves a broad variety of plant seeds in an underground cavern. The collection of seeds is what might be termed “backup copies” of seeds held in gene banks elsewhere in the world. The seed vault provides insurance against the loss of seeds in these other banks, as well as against worldwide crises.
Dr. Cary Fowler is the executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, one of three organizations responsible for the vault. It was through Dr. Fowler that Jeremy was able to pay a visit to—and film—the vault. “Cary Fowler was generous enough to fly out there and meet us, when he wouldn’t have otherwise been going there,” Jeremy said. “That’s really the only way inside the vault.
“My impression from the vault itself was that it was a magical womb in this mountain that’s just so quiet and austere, holding all these backup copies of the seeds of the world. I think it’s a really special feeling being in that room and seeing the names of all the countries, coexisting side by side. Those boxes hold the mysterious beginning of life, and you could reseed the world from those seeds. Just knowing the potential in that room, I think there’s a lesson there for peaceful coexistence among all these countries that are at times fighting one another.”
Jeremy filmed an interview with Dr. Fowler on the reasons for and benefits of the vault. “He started the seed vault because he saw loss of enormous seed banks around the world due to war, fire, earthquake, just neglect, lack of funding—all sorts of things,” Jeremy recounted. “Dr. Fowler said that we need to find a way to preserve this biodiversity and help these countries by having backup copies. When the US went into Iraq, somehow the seed vault in Abu Ghraib was destroyed and all those seeds and all that biodiversity lost. If the Svalbard seed vault had been around then, and had Iraq made a deposit there, they would have had a backup of all those seeds and could then get them, plant them and save them again.”
The Northern California Trip
Jeremy also made a trip to Northern California to meet with several heavyweights in the real food movement. These included author, journalist and environmental attorney Claire Hope Cummings; Anuradha Mittal, founder and executive director of the Oakland Institute; Marcia Ishii-Eiteman, senior scientist with the Pesticide Action Network; and Andrew Kimbrell, public interest attorney and executive director of the Center for Food Safety.
“I came away from that trip feeling very encouraged that there are such educated, passionate, informed and committed people working on this and thinking about it and fighting for justice,” Jeremy said. “They are fighting for all of us to no longer be enslaved by these companies, forced to eat what they’ve determined we’ll eat. They’re watching our backs, and they’re really out there on the front lines fighting for the rights of farmers.
Click any image above to see a larger version.
“Claire Hope Cummings was amazing. For me, her book Uncertain Peril is really the best book I’ve read on the genetically engineered food debacle. She puts it into a beautiful context and sees the whole picture in a truly helpful way. It’s not just a bunch of facts and attacking the problem; she’s showing it in a larger context of not only politically and socially but also culturally and spiritually. It was fun; we got to spend a few hours with her and she brought these big stalks of lettuce with seeds on them. That was the entry point to talk about what’s occurring now with our seeds and what needs to happen.
“Anuradha Mittal is looking at the land grabs that are happening in places throughout Africa. Huge swaths of land are being taken up to grow genetically engineered corn for ethanol production here in the States. How insane is that? Thousands upon thousands of small-time farmers and families are being pushed off their land, where they were growing food to feed themselves and a good part of their country; and now that land is going to be used to grow genetically engineered corn, which is then shipped across the world here to produce ethanol—which everyone knows is the worst way to produce ethanol.”
Of course, no documentary on the subject of GMOs would be complete without an interview with Andrew Kimbrell. “He is a powerhouse,” Jeremy remarked. “You start giving him a question or a topic, and he has such an amazing mind it’s as if he just wrote that article or just read the information. I could barely start mentioning about patents or loss of biodiversity or some recent thing—whether it was deregulation of GM alfalfa or something happening in Africa with buying up land—and he would hop on it and rattle off a perfect quotable three or four minutes of amazing material.
“These are talented people with the courage to do things like sue the USDA or the FDA or EPA. What if they weren’t doing that? What if you didn’t have people like Andrew Kimbrell watching them and saying, ‘No, they didn’t do a proper environmental impact study, and that matters and so we’re going to sue them’?”
Finalizing the Movie
There are many other surprises in store for the viewer when the film is released, such as an interview with Indian philosopher and environmental and agricultural activist Dr. Vandana Shiva. Jeremy has also yet to decide on a title for the film. But for those nuggets we will have to wait; Jeremy is now sequestered away, deep in the editing process. When he has a finished documentary, you’ll hear about it
from us.
To view a trailer for Jeremy’s GMO film, visit www.gmofilm.com.
You can also read updates posted during the filming here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gmofilmproject/gmo-film-project-untitled/posts.
Visit the film’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/pages/GMO-Film-Project-Untitled/159322734121045.
loading...
loading...
