Cloudberries are so revered in Finnish culture that the locals proclaim, “they’re worth bowing down for.” Only now when Finns stoop for the divine fruit, they risk knocking heads with Thai immigrants who have arrived to harvest the berries for a large-scale food distributor. Ninety percent of this national crop will be sold in foreign markets. This short film offers a new spin on the familiar issues that are part and parcel of industrialized food production: the loss of indigenous culture, xenophobia, exploitation, and economic instability. Its uncanny lyricism transforms Finnish forests and fields into a misty dreamscape haunted by strangers and violated by the mechanized monster of the production line. Part labor exposé, part Grimm’s fairy tale, How to Pick Berries is an ethereal portrait of terrain at once inviting and entirely unfamiliar.  TW