Tierralismo
Icarus Films
•
49m
Directed by Alejandro Ramirez Anderson • Documentary • 2013 • 49 minutes
On the outskirts of Havana, sandwiched between highways and public housing, a revolution is taking place. Here, in the district of Alamar, a 26-acre farming co-op provides employment for dozens of workers, while producing vegetables and medicinal plants for the local community and beyond.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Bloc in the early 1990s, Cuba was no longer able to access machinery and agricultural chemicals from its former Communist allies. In this difficult environment, the government relaxed economic rules and allowed the formation of cooperatives—like the Organoponico Vivero Alamar.
What began as necessity—farming without pesticides and chemical fertilizers—has become a source of pride for co-op members. They fertilize with compost and cow manure, raise their own insects for biological pest control, and have even created a fully biodegradable alternative to the plastic bag for use with seedlings.
Up Next in Icarus Films
-
Time of Pandemics
Directed by Rehad Desai • Documentary • 2023 • 87 minutes
By the time COVID-19 appeared, South African filmmaker Rehad Desai was all-too-familiar with pandemics. Not only had he previously worked in HIV prevention, he was also in the midst of making a film about a clinical trial for a vaccine th...
-
Time Thieves
Directed by Cosima Dannoritzer • Documentary • 2018 • 85 minutes
Who hasn’t come across the situation where an airline has us printing our own boarding passes and checking in our own luggage, saving the company a fortune in working hours? Who hasn’t spent hours assembling a piece of furniture, o...
-
To Be Seen
Directed by Alice Arnold • Documentary • 2005 • 30 minutes
TO BE SEEN is a study of visual culture, of urban culture and an exploration of an age-old urban cultural phenomenon, street art.
The subculture of street art is significant because it is an embodiment of subversive content, which is r...
