Raising Resistance

NEW DOCS

In one generation, the cultivation of transgenic soy has exploded in South America and has changed the way people live. Enormous tracts of land are cleared for the intensively mechanized, herbicide-dependent production of soy. A relatively few people profit from the export of this “green gold,” while small farmers find their traditional way of life destroyed. In a field in Paraguay, campesinos stop a tractor in protest, forced to take action because they can no longer depend on their small patch of earth to support them, to be “the factory of the poor.” Deftly weaving multiple threads together, the film addresses the issue from many angles, from local direct action to street protests in Asunción to the larger political arena. Biotechnology can be seen as a means of feeding the world, or as a poisonous horror that will eventually destroy the land and everything that lives on it.  TBW

Directors

Bettina Borgfeld, David Bernet

Producer

Olivia Stoltz

Associate Producer

Wekas Gaba

Editor

Inge Schneider

Cinematographers

Marcus Winter Bauer, Börres Weiffenbach

Release Year

2011

Festival Year

2012

Country

Germany, Switzerland

Run Time

85 minutes

Premiere

North American Premiere