Cinema Verde Film Festival

Cinema Verde Environmental Film & Arts Festival’s fourth annual Environmental Film and Arts Festival Feb. 9-14, 2013 is at Jolie in downtown Gainesville. Cinema Verde’s overall mission is to raise awareness of environmental issues through the arts and to bring people together to implement sustainable solutions. The festival provides environmental education to the public through films, arts, workshops, events, tours and other activities. Cinema Verde works with local governments, sustainable businesses, environmental organizations and citizens.


On February 12th, Symphony of the Soil screened to festival goers. People walked out of the theater knowing more about soil than they knew they wanted to know. It was so well received that today it was released that Symphony of the Soil won the Cinema Verde Film Festival’s Food Award.

 

GAINING GROUND A documentary digs up dirt on soil

Article from PureWOW written by Cristina Tudino

Soil is not particularly gripping on the surface–it’s, well, a dirty shade of brown and crawling with insects. If you asked us to watch a full-length film about it, we’d politely decline.

That is until we heard about Symphony of the Soil, a new documentary by Deborah Koons Garcia. Convinced that most people are what she calls “soil blind,” meaning unaware and unappreciative of its value, Garcia devoted the film to digging up the latest science on and impact of dirt.

The environmentalist and filmmaker based in Mill Valley (and yes, Jerry’s widow) filmed on four continents–and, of course, right here in Northern California. Interviewing ecologists, activists and farmers, she uncovered countless reasons we should care more about what’s underfoot.

For starters, there isn’t an unlimited supply of what is literally the foundation for life on earth. Soil quality affects the healthfulness and flavor of our food (and more important, wine!). And when treated with synthetic fertilizers, soil can cause birth defects and developmental disorders in children.

So what can we do? Garcia advocates composting, chemical-free gardening, eating locally grown food and staying informed about relevant policy through organizations such as the Organic Consumers Association.

One thing’s for sure: You’ll never look at dirt the same way again.

Sunset Magazine: The Green Screen

Sunset Magazine’s February 2013 issue featured many captivating pieces that everyone in the Western United States should read, including a modest spotlight on Deborah Koons Garcia, director of Symphony of the Soil.

The Green Screen

“[Symphony of the Soil is] A must-see for sustainable agriculture skeptics.” – Sunset Magazine

No Vampires. No Super heros. See full page here: SunsetMag_SOS_Article001

 

Sunset Magazine

Get your copy today online or at your nearest print publication store.

Making a Movie about Soil: A Day in the Life of Kate Scow

Article by Chris Zimmerman | Soil Science Society of America

Soil Science Society of America member Kate Scow has done a little bit of everything. In her words, she’s “a meandering path. And those who meander should take solace.” Scow grew up in Maryland but lived abroad in Israel and Argentina with her family as a teenager, an experience that seemed to spark her wandering ways. She returned to the U.S. to study biology and ecology before receiving her Ph.D. in soil science from Cornell University. She is now a professor of soil science at the University of California–Davis.

For the past five years, Scow has been working with filmmaker Deborah Koons Garcia on Symphony of the Soil, an artistic look into the connections between soil and the world. The UC Davis professor served as the key adviser to the film, supplementing the filmmaker’s artistic vision with the technical aspects of soil science. Here’s what Scow had to say about her role in the movie-making process.

Soil Horizons: When did you first know you had an interest in soil science?

Scow: I didn’t know that I was interested in it for a long time. When I was a teenager, my family drove across Europe, and I collected a soil sample from each country and brought it home—illegally. That’s when I was 15 or something. So something was afoot.

I started out studying animal behavior, but I worked for a few years doing a lot of risk assessment for the USEPA on contaminants before going back to graduate school. I started to hear about soil and see the importance of it, and it seemed like everything came from soil. Everything goes back to soil. I fell in love.

Soil Horizons: And now you’ve helped make a film about soil. What was your role in Symphony of the Soil?

Scow: I’ve been involved in the film from the very beginning about five years ago. Deborah Koons Garcia, the filmmaker, found me by talking to several people who suggested me for the job. As an adviser, my role has been to point out key references of soil science. I helped explain and simplify some of the really challenging concepts, like the nitrogen cycle and soil biodiversity.I provided a lot of input in what to include and not to include and did a lot of checking for scientific accuracy. This was in light of Deborah’s need to be able to express herself in more artistic ways. So it was quite interesting to think about fact checking in a film that’s so artful.

Kate Scow is a professor of soil science at the University of California–Davis and key adviser on the film Symphony of the Soil, an artistic look into the connections between soil and the world.

Soil Horizons: Did you work on this on a full-time basis?

Scow: It was on and off over the five years it took to make the film. There were times when it was pretty intense and then times where it was more intermittent. It took a while to put together this film, so we kind of went with the flow as it was being made.

Soil Horizons: Did you travel much with the crew?

Scow: In California, I traveled a bit with them. I went on several shoots. But I was much more comfortable being an adviser than being a “player” in the film. Most of my time was spent at the studio, putting together the story board for the whole film and taking copies of the film home to review them and provide feedback.

Soil Horizons: Did the movie end up like you imagined it would?
Images from the movie, Symphony of the Soil.

Scow: I love film. It’s one of my passions in life. I was part of an advisory committee at Cornell, where I programmed a lot of film festivals and showings. So I’m very keyed into film. I’ve always wanted to be involved in making a film about soil, and I always imagined something along the lines of Fantastic Voyage, with Raquel Welch traveling through the human body. I wanted to do a film like that about soil. Going down preferential flow paths, getting chased by nematodes, hiding in small pores. But that’s a completely different kind of idea.

When I met Deborah, I realized she was going to be taking us to a place where we don’t usually go in soil. She already had a strong desire to create this symphony about soil. She’s very musical and Vivian, her editor, is an incredible music editor. Soil is so stubborn about showing its beauty; we just walk all over it. It’s really tough to get at it. But Deborah had this vision, and I watched as she captured all of these different things about soil, these great scientists she had giving insight, all combined with the music. It came out more intense, emotional, and beautiful than I ever imagined. Am I foaming at the mouth yet?

Soil Horizons: How do you organize and assemble a film that takes five years to complete?

Scow: By starting out with some really great ideas, places, people, and going and doing that stuff. You start out with that, and you look at it, you think more, you read more, you talk, and you discuss ideas. So there was some footage filmed in the last year to fill in some gaps that were clearly identified once the film as a whole could be seen. It couldn’t be seen until there was enough film to piece together. You’re putting together a lot of pieces, and filling in the gaps later.

I think part of why the film is so amazing is that Deborah had a lot of time to think and dwell about where the film went. Its direction would change over time. Certain things would pop up, and different stuff emerged. She has a really great eye for that and is open to seeing where the process takes her. Deborah loves science. She really is a science nerd, but she also knows that she wouldn’t touch a lot of people if she made a “hardcore facts” film. People who don’t naturally take to science would feel force-fed. What she did was provide a taste of these deeper and broader concepts that some people are really going to get a hunger for. They’re going to go and track more of this information down on Google or by reading books. She has such a great eye for what’s beautiful and emotionally moving, and she could see that in the soil, which can be so unyielding.

Soil Horizons: It must have been great for you to finally get the chance to be part of a film. Did you learn a lot in the process?

Scow: I did. I love film, and it was incredible to see the process and be there all along. It was an amazing gift to me, being involved in it all along the way as the key adviser. You go out and capture footage of all these different things, and then you cut it down, and try to glue it all together and then you condense it more and weave it together, and distill it. Weave and distill. Capture the essence. And the whole time, you’re looking at the overall structure of the entire film. It has its own architecture. It was incredible to see the whole process.

Soil Horizons: Now that it’s complete, what do you like most about the film?

Scow: I like that it celebrates the soil with no reservations. I thought Deborah really caught the beauty and huge mystery of soil. And she captured that while still providing a lot of real knowledge.In talking with people about it, it seems like the film works well for those who have no connection to soil. They see it and go, “Wow, there’s so much here.” And it’s great for people who have a casual relationship with soil, like gardeners. People who may not have the technical expertise, but think about soil all the time. And it even works for the experts who already know a lot about theory and practice. The film really uplifts soil. It brings it to the higher level where it should be. |

Read original article here at the Soil Science Society of America

Becoming Soil Conscious

This fall I will be completing my new feature length documentary, Symphony of the Soil. Along with this exploration of soil, I am creating several short films, Sonatas of the Soil, each of which goes deeply into one soil-related topic like dry farming grapes, as is depicted in Portrait of a Winemaker: John Williams of Frogs’ Leap. Yes, I have become a soil freak or soil geek or soil lover or all three. How did this happen?

Several years ago I made the film The Future of Food that helped kick start the food movement. I spent years travelling around the country and the world showing the film and speaking about food and agriculture. That film was very well received and had a positive impact on a lot of people’s lives, so I decided to make another film in the same realm, a film about soil. Knowing little about soil before I committed to the project, I soon realized how incredibly complex soil is. How could I make a film that does justice to this fascinating substance, which is in fact a living organism? After all, if you just look at soil, there seems to be no action, no action at all. But if you are in the know, you marvel at what has gone into creating that soil, what is going on in it, the billions of organisms and dynamics we are only beginning to discover, and what happens because of soil, like the recycling of life.

The way I now understand soil, if I were holding some soil in my hand and said, “This is soil,” it would be like holding seawater in my hand and saying “This is the ocean.” I have spent the past few years wrestling with, crystallizing, distilling complexity. The study of soil involves chemistry, physics, anthropology, geology and geography, but most importantly, biology—the study of life—because soil is the essence of life. Soil is about transformation. Without soil, there would be no human race. In fact, the word “human” comes from the same root as the word “humus,” a component of soil. Soil is one of the true miracles of this planet. And we treat it like dirt.

Early in my research, an accomplished soil scientist told me that she didn’t think of soil as an agricultural medium, even though she has published many books and papers on agricultural soils. As I got up to speed on what soil really encompasses, I came to the realization that soil is a vast realm, and food and farming are only a part of that realm. I came to see soil as a protagonist of our planetary story. I became protective of it and broke myself of the habit of thinking soil/agriculture, soil/ agriculture, of thinking of soil and immediately jumping to “How can we use this? What can we get out of this?” The real questions became “How can we appreciate soil? How can we let it live?”

In much of what passes for agriculture today, soil has become an inert medium that chemicals are poured into and dollars are pulled out of. In fact, the chemicals that are poured into it can deform and kill the life in the soil and it’s the life in the soil that creates fertility. The classic, sensible axiom that healthy soil creates healthy plants that create healthy people has been lost in the vast fields of today’s industrial agriculture.

A year ago I was invited to go to China to show my films. One of our hosts was an esteemed scientist who told me that only about 10% of China’s soil is usable for farming or grazing. By contrast, over 40% of the soil in the United States is made up of the planet’s most productive soil types—the “molisols” found on prairie grasslands and fertile forest “alfisols.” This scientist also told me that the reality of so little good soil has shaped Chinese culture and character: they are more collective-minded, more careful, more conservative because they have to be. They have to pull together to be able to feed themselves. They have a similar situation with their water resources.

In America, on the other hand, we have lived as if we are so rich in resources that we can abuse our soil without consequences. We think we can let topsoil blow away and that there will always be more, somehow, somewhere. We Ameri-cans think of ourselves as highly individualistic. We like “doing our own thing.” If we have a problem with wanting too much and wasting too much, we can blame our good soil for that. With so much abundance, we have had little need of being careful. But, China has been around for thousands of years, and our modern US society about 300. Our soils have now become profoundly stressed and degraded. If we keep farming the way we are currently, we will be out of topsoil in 30 years. We need to reconsider what has become our national character, our “natural” tendencies. We don’t like limits, but we are running up against them. Rather than slipping into arrogant denial, we need to learn to thrive within limits, to take that as our challenge.

How do we create a healthy relationship with soil? We have to look to nature and see how she does it. Modern science offers us a way to explore this natural world. Today, because of advances in technology—electron microscopes, satellites and various tools for measuring—we know a lot more about soil. Soil science is now cutting edge and profoundly relevant in researching everything from climate change to nutrition.

We now know that soil is a complex ecosystem. Soil is a community, and we are all part of the soil community. From the smallest microorganisms to insects to prairie dogs to bison to humans, we are all taking from and giving back to the soil; it’s an incredibly dynamic process. Soil is the matrix and web of life. And it’s all about relationships. Burrowing animals churn up the soil to let air and water in, to let roots grow. Without them soil can become compact and dried out. Without grazing animals, prairies would become forests. Prairies support grasses and their deep roots that die and replenish the prairie soils, which is why those soils have the highest fertility of all soils. By contrast, tropical soils tend to be shallow and relatively infertile because all the life is held in the dense forest plants. Soil is also a mysterious ecosystem. 90% of the microorganisms in soil have not been identified, much less understood as to how they function.

One of the interesting things I’ve learned about soil is that it’s not just what we think of as “earth.” Soil is 50% solid matter, made up mostly of minerals, 25% air and 25% water—no matter how dry it seems. 1.5% to 15% of the solid matter is what is known as “soil organic matter.” Most of that is comprised of dead microorganisms and a very small percentage of it is alive. I see soil as being made up of all the elements—earth, air, water and the microorganisms are the fire—the force that drives life as it cycles through the soil.

In a healthy organic system, nematodes can eat 10,000 bacteria a day and break apart the nutrients, including nitrogen, in those bacteria and then poop them out so they are available to be taken up by plants. This is referred to as the “poop loop” and it functions as a nitrogen bank. Mycorrhizal fungi have a symbiotic relationship with plants—the plants give them carbohydrates and they reach out with hyphae, branching filaments tinier than plant roots, and find minerals to take back to the plant. This is how plants get the phosphorous they need to grow. Bacteria also feed on plant exudates, carbohydrates, and then build up around the plant, acting like a castle wall protecting the plant from diseases. These are examples of mutualism that only happen when soil is alive and functioning as a healthy system. Putting pesticides, chemical nitrogen and toxins into this system deforms or kills the microbial life and the result is diminished fertility, diminished resistance to disease. Plants diminished in this way become dependent on external chemical inputs to feed and protect them.

a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Howard”>Sir Albert Howard’s work has influenced organic and sustainable farmers since he began speaking and writing in the early 20th century. One of his best-known practices, which he learned from peasant farmers in India, now known as Sir Albert Howard’s Law of Return, advises us to return to the soil what we take from it, as nature does. This means that organic matter and nutrients must be returned to the soil to feed and replenish it. Since farming by definition takes produce from the fields, farmers must find ways to give nutrients and organic matter back to the soil. Composting, cover crops and crop rotation are ways to do this. These practices which give back to the soil are in direct opposition to “mining” the soil, the “gut it and get out” mentality that ultimately produces barren land.

At the Jepson Prairie Organics facility in Vacaville, they create organic compost from San Francisco’s green and restaurant food waste. It is an amazing process and the end result is compost that even organic farmers can apply to their crops. We should be doing exactly this everywhere in this country. Our soils are starving for carbon and nutrients, and recycling our “clean” wastes can help restore the soil. Composting is a form of giving back to the soil, of mimicking what nature does when a leaf falls from a tree and decomposes back into the soil under that tree to feed it. I have filmed composting on four continents, and its increasingly popularity may be a saving grace to our planet’s soils.

In complete contrast to the work they are doing at Jepson Prairie Organics and other true composting facilities like it, is the repellent public policy that allows sewage sludge to be put on farmland. The way things are working now in our waste treatment systems, the cleaner the water, the more toxic the sludge. While humans have for eons returned human waste, liquid and night soil, to land, the reality is different now because of the amount of pharmaceuticals and other chemicals now in that waste. Industrial wastes, heavy metals and a long ugly list of chemicals now end up in sewage sludge, which has been politely renamed “biosolids,” and can be labeled “organic” because it contains carbon. This use of the term organic was grandfathered in before the USDA Organic Standards were defined. Companies and municipalities, including San Francisco, then mix the sludge with wood chips, label it “compost,” and sell it. Unsuspecting buyers think they are getting actual chemicalfree, transformed green and food waste, but they are not. In my opinion this is a scandal and should be the cause of a real public outcry because some of this stuff is being put on school gardens—given away for free!

Since we humans are members of the soil community, we too must learn that if we want our community, in the largest sense, to thrive, we must give back. And just as we have been taking from the soil and not giving back, our society has mirrored this tendency, and become one in which taking and not giving back has become the norm. If we treated our soil right, perhaps that would somehow change our whole society and change the way we relate to each other so we could create healthier, living communities.

Soil is indeed the protagonist of our planetary story. Halfway through making this film, I realized I was making a film about the underworld, about death and regeneration. Our bones and muscles, our bodies, are made up of nutrients we get from plants or animals that they got from the soil. We rise up out of the soil, and we return to it when we die. These elements are then recycled by soil back into life. And if you don’t have regeneration, the cycling of life into death and back into life, you just have degradation and death.

The good news is that soil is pretty forgiving. If we change the way we treat soil, we could solve so many of our problems in just a few years. Soil lovers unite! The planet we save will be our own!

– By Deborah Koons Garcia