POSTPONED!

13th Annual

Farm & Film Night Gala
in Collaboration with Awareness Film Night

Wednesday April 8, 2020, 6:15 pm – 9:00 pm

EMCS Theatre

Admission by donation

6:15-7:15: Farm Gala: In the theatre foyer, farmers and other vendors will be selling seeds, plants, gardening supplies and locally-made ware. The evening also includes educational info tables, tea and goodies, and raffle gift baskets including a loaf of Beardo’s Bakehouse sourdough bread. 

7:15-9:00: Film screening and raffle draw

The 13th Annual Farm and Film Gala co-presented with Awareness Film Night will feature vendors of farm and garden supplies, seeds, plants and locally grown/made produce and wares, community information tables and tea, coffee and goodies made by the EMCS Culinary Arts students, gift baskets and the film The Need to Grow.

The Need to Grow  follows pioneers of cutting edge technology as they fight to localize sustainable food systems and regenerate Earth’s dying soils. In a race against the end of farmable soil, three individuals fight for change in the industry of agricultural food production, calling for a revolution. “The Need to GROW” delivers alarming evidence on the importance of healthy soil — revealing not only the potential of localized food production working with nature, but our opportunity as individuals to help regenerate our planet’s dying soils and participate in the restoration of the Earth.

The Need To GROW explores both the opportunities, and the struggles, of challenging the status quo with real world solutions. The inspiring stories are supported by featured experts Dr. Vandana Shiva (Physicist and Agroecologist), Paul Stamets (world-renowned Mycologist), David King (Master Gardener and founder of SLOLA), Douglas Gayeton (founder of Lexicon of Food), Jeffrey Smith (author of Seeds of Deception), Kathy Kellogg Johnson (composting expert), and Permaculture Guru Larry Santoyo.

Past annual Farm & Film Gala Evenings have included

  • 2019 –  After Winter, Spring. a film about a small rural community in the Perigord region of southwestern France, cultivated for over 6000 years, caught between their traditional ways of farming and an uncertain future. Their story is beautifully and lovingly photographed and recorded by one of their neighbors, filmmaker Judith Lit, who grew up on her family’s farm in Pennsylvania. Through the compelling stories of these hard-working farmers inextricably connected to their land and their animals the film explores the nature of small farms and the rapid changes of the last two decades that have impacted the lives of farmers whose survival is tied to the land.
  • 2018 – Evolution of Organic, Mark Kitchell’s insightful 2017 documentary retraces, through lots of archival photos and videos, the first steps of the motley crew of rebellious back-to-the-landers, spiritual seekers and sons and daughter of farmers who rejected chemical farming and set out to explore organic alternatives.
  • 2017- SEED: The Untold Story , feature film traversing the globe showcasing passionate  farmers, scientists, seed savers, educators, lawyers and Indigenous communities who are saving local, acclimated, not genetically modified seeds.
  • 2016 – Nourish, feature film tracing our relationship to food from a global perspective to personal action steps. 
  • 2015 – Just Eat It, feature film on food waste followed by with a panel on food waste in Sooke.
  • 2014 – Preserving Farmland, short films and speaker panel.
  • 2013 –  Outstanding in Her Field, short 1995 film on women in agriculture with a panel on contemporary issues for women in agriculture.
  • 2012 –  To Make a Farm, feature film exploring the lives of five young people entering small-scale agriculture, with a panel on new farmers in Sooke.