This page is about our feature-length documentary film project Final Straw: Food, Earth, Happiness. There is also a freely-available abbreviated version of this film Food, Earth, Happiness.
Solutions for our most pressing global issues come from unexpected places in a film that New York Times bestselling author Alicia Bay Laurel calls “beautiful … both art and documentary.”
Inspired by the works of Masanobu Fukuoka, author of the seminal environmental book One Straw Revolution, this film weaves together meditative landscapes, an eclectic original soundtrack, and inspiring stories from some of the world’s foremost figures in the natural farming movement. Together they give modern-day relevance to age-old ideas about food, environmentalism, and happiness.
Begun in 2011, the film took four years to produce. Since its release in 2015, the film has been screened in over 250 cities around the world by global NPOs, community groups, film festivals, and in academic settings. In 2018, the film was selected as one of 25 films for the Global Environmental Justice collection, by professors at Yale, Whittier, Brandeis, and NYU for use in university courses on environmental issues.
Final Straw: Food, Earth, Happiness is a film that will leave you inspired, happier, and perhaps even motivated to make a few changes in your own lifestyle.
More Than a Film, a Movement
To us, this is more than just a documentary film. In addition to our filming, we have reached out, to create cross-discipline community events, we’ve used art and ecology together as a bridge for understanding and connecting, and we have conducted large amounts of research, not only in libraries and academic centers, but firsthand, person-to-person, both within some of the largest cities, and smallest communities in the world.
The film’s grassroots popularity doesn’t seem to be slowing down. It’s been translated into seven languages (English, Korean, Japanese, French, Vietnamese, Chinese, Turkish, with others in progress) and continues to enjoy community screenings and events held regularly around the world.
We have also produced a freely-available 9-week course and reading list that can be used by anyone, as a self-paced educational resource. You can access Food, Earth, Happiness & The Future of Food on the Final Straw website.
Reviews
“Wow!! A great film … both art and documentary.”
– Alicia Bay Laurel | author of ‘Living on the Earth’
“Thought-provoking and inspiring … a powerful call to action”
– Clean Eating Magazine
“… a compelling direction for those seeking to unplug from the materially driven, resource-intensive global food system.”
– Natale Zappia, chair of environmental studies at Whittier College
“A film with a very big heart … the world needs such films now more than ever.”
– Brian Covert, journalist & lecturer at Doshisha University, Kyoto
“meditative, mindful … a beautiful film”
– Barbara Baker, BBC food journalist / Mindful Pie
“Loved it so much … filled with TLC”
– Keibo Oiwa / author of ‘Slow is Beautiful’ and professor of cultural anthropology at Meiji Gakuin Univeristy, Tokyo
“The film filled me up with great joy and inspiration…I knew it was going to uplift and give a new perspective to my soul, but I didn’t know how deeply it would do those things! I’m going to watch the film today… for the 8th time.”
– Rafayah Uzzyah, Philadelphia, USA
“Your film enables us to catch a glimpse of the people and things which society can not ordinarily grasp or see… thank you for your beautiful work”
– Kim JaeHyung / Korean philosopher and activist
Project Partners
Aichi University of Art
Booksense Publishers
Small House, Dajeon
Space Noah, Seoul
Open Contents Lab
Robert Callender Residency for Young Artists
University of Edinburgh
Links
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