The Ants and the Grasshopper

Anita Chitaya has a gift; she can help bring abundant food from dead soil, she can make men fight for gender equality, and she can end child hunger in her village. Now, to save her home from extreme weather, she faces her greatest challenge: persuading Americans that climate change is real.

Traveling from Malawi to California to the White House, Anita meets climate skeptics and despairing farmers. Her journey takes her across all the divisions shaping the US, from the rural-urban divide, to schisms of race, class and gender, to the thinking that allows Americans to believe we live on a different planet from everyone else. It will take all her skill and experience to persuade us that we’re all in this together.

This documentary, ten years in the making, weaves together the most urgent themes of our times: climate change, gender and racial inequality, the gaps between the rich and the poor, and the ideas that groups around the world have generated in order to save the planet.

Free admission. Sponsored by the Institute for African Development (IAD) at the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies and supported by IAD's Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Languages (UISFL) Grant from the U.S. Department of Education.

Film website: https://www.antsandgrasshopper.org/

"I am blown away. You have found a hero of such grace and intelligence and power, and you had the good sense to get out of the way, center the narrative on her. The film is obviously not about agriculture in the way I expected to be-- it’s much bigger than that. We get to observe history. That’s what ten years on a movie gets you. I feel invested in the project... so wonderful to see it completed. I will be happy to spread the word." - Michael Pollan, Author & Director Of The Knight Program In Science And Environmental Journalism

 

The Ants & The Grasshopper (Official Trailer) from Kartemquin Films on Vimeo.