The Ants and the Grasshopper: HOW DO YOU CHANGE SOMEONE’S MIND ABOUT THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD?

SYNOPSIS

Anita Chitaya has a gift; she can help bring abundant food from dead soil, she can make men fight for gender equality, and she can end child hunger in her village. Now, to save her home from extreme weather, she faces her greatest challenge:

persuading Americans that climate change is real. Traveling from Malawi to California to the White House, she meets climate sceptics and despairing farmers. Her journey takes her across all the divisions shaping the US, from the rural-urban divide, to schisms of race, class and gender, to the thinking that allows Americans to believe we live on a different planet from everyone else. It will take all her skill and experience to persuade us that we’re all in this together.

This documentary, ten years in the making, weaves together the most urgent themes of our times: climate change, gender and racial inequality, the gaps between the rich and the poor, and the ideas that groups around the world have generated in order to save the planet.

The themes in Anita’s journey in front of the camera are vast: climate change, hunger, women’s empowerment, colonialism, racial inequality and faith. It is a film with a vision of planetary importance. It speaks to the themes of two major events in 2021 that will shape the planet for generations to come: the UN Food System summit and UN Climate Change Summit (COP26). Global climate and social change movements are ready to use the film, and a growing group of influencers are ready to offer their support. From 350.org, Greenpeace, and the 200-million member La Via Campesina to the Orthodox, Presbytarian and Catholic Churches, from Boots Riley to Michael Pollan, a diverse and wide coalition has formed around our film, united by the potential to transform perspectives, relationships of power, and our planet.