The June screening of Progressive Cinema will focus on movements to ensure that food is produced sustainably in communities, by communities and for the benefit of communities, rather than by large corporations for the benefit of their shareholders, without regard for the ecological and social consequences. Two films, La Via Campesina in Movement: Food Sovereignty Now! and Food Fight, will be shown at the Armidale Club, 91 Beardy Street, Armidale, at 7.30pm on Wednesday, June 13, 2012.
“We are excited that Jo Leoni, Convener of the Community Garden Action Group of Sustainable Living Armidale, will be present a talk about local initiatives towards food sovereignty and take part in the discussion after the screening,” said Russell Hay, one of the organisers of Progressive Cinema.
The first film, Food Fight, documents the ongoing struggle by former workers in the Heinz factory at Girgarre, a small town in Victoria. After Heinz decided to close the factory, resulting in the loss of 146 jobs, the workers formed the Goulburn Valley Food Co-operative.
The second film La Via Campesina in Movement: Food Sovereignty Now! is a film about and made by Via Campesina, a world-wide peasant movement which brings together a large number of peasant, indigenous and agricultural workers’ organisations from 70 countries, representing, in all, 200 million small farmers. It defends small-scale sustainable agriculture as a way to promote social justice and dignity. It strongly opposes corporate driven agriculture and transnational companies that are destroying people and nature.
The event will be free. However donations to support the Armidale Club are encouraged.
For more information, call Bea Bleile on 0458 752 680. Turntables Restaurant will be open for dinner from 6pm.
