Flicks Cinema 'The Real Dirt on Farmer John'

Friday 23rd April 'The Real Dirt on Farmer John' (87mins) plus short award winning film 'Field of Fish'

The film tells a story that hits a note with many local families here in West Auckland. With the fertile, agricultural land being sold off and developed with mass housing I thought it would be timely to screen the film again.

Filmmaker Taggart Siegel captures two turbulent decades in the life of John Peterson, an Illinois farmer who not only tends the land but also delves into writing and performance art. A man who would as soon work the fields in a feather boa as in a pair of jeans, Peterson rises out of the bankruptcy and depression plaguing Midwest farm communities in the 1980s and saves his livelihood through organic agriculture.

Review: The film has been directed and photographed by Taggart Siegel, who has been filming Peterson and his farm for more than 20 years. This is a loving, moving, inspiring, quirky documentary that was made while the lives it records were being lived. We get a sure sense for the gradual death of the American family farm, the auctions of land and farm equipment, the encroachment of suburban housing, and then an almost miraculous rebirth through the introduction of organic gardening. Fruits and vegetables in America have lost half their nutritive value in the last century, and those pretty hothouse tomatoes contain a fraction of the nutrients and phytochemicals in an organic tomato, but visionaries like Peterson are finding a way back to the land.

It also an inspiring vision of the way forward for food production, a portrait of what Peterson calls "a dead farm coming back to life". After reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, it may be just the antidote you need.

Plus award winning short film 'Field of Fish' (18mins) Winner of Best Children's short film at the Celtic Film Festival. Based on a true story about fisherman, Jeremiah Joliff and the Witchey Eye Gang. Narration by Sir Ian Holm, Written by Anna Maria-Murphy and Filmed by Robin Kewell
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​Tickets $15/$12/$10 from eventfinda.co.nz and on door
Bookings text 0210 222 5558
Showing at 10-30am / 6pm / 8-15pm