Urban Roots (2013)
Premiered Reykjavik International Film Festival 2013
1h 31min | English | Created by Tree Media | Produced by Mathew Schmid, Leila Conners, Mark McInnis
"When everything collapses, plant your field of dreams."
URBAN ROOTS is a documentary that tells the story of the spontaneous emergence of urban farming in the city of Detroit. A small group of dedicated citizens have started an urban environmental movement with the potential to transform not just a city after its collapse, but also a country after the end of its industrial age. It took men like Henry Ford, William Durant, and Lee Iacocca to build this city, but it's taken a bunch of strong willed self-taught urban farmers to save it.
Trailer
Shepard Fairey created a series of 450 signed and numbered screen printed posters for Urban Roots that sold out in 22 hours on Obey Giant. He also created a limited series of signed, AP prints to support the urban farming movement. Inquire >
SELECTED SCREENINGS & EVENTS
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Official Selection Reykjavik International Film Festival (RIFF) World Premier
Official Selection Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival
Official Selection Eco Focus Film Festival
Official Selection Planet in Focus Film Festival
Official Selection Imagesante Film Festival
Official Selection San Francisco Green Film Festival
Official Selection One World Film Festival
Official Selection Food for Thought Film Series
Official Selection Dig In! Film Festival
Official Selection World Community Film Festival
Official Selection Princeton Film Festival
Official Selection Saratoga Film Forum
Official Selection Marda Loop Justice Film Festival
Official Selection Utah Film Center Festival
Official Selection Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts Film Series
Official Selection Deconstructing Dinner Film Festival
Official Selection Regent Park Film Festival
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WHAT THE PRESS IS SAYING
“Urban Roots tells the compelling story of several native inhabitants of Detroit as they get involved in the urban farming movement. They literally transform vacant lots into active producing gardens that provide for their local communities. There are several agricultural programs which the film explores that have cropped up to solve a specific issue. The people involved have become emotionally connected and feel rooted in their city once again. The stories they tell are terrific.”
- Earth Times
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“Urban Roots shows us a different image of Detroit through the eyes of its dedicated urban farmers. In addition to giving background on Motor City’s rise and fall, and introducing viewers to the folks behind a handful of urban farms across town, the film digs into important topics like the racial implications of gardening. Despite its negative associations with slavery, the film argues, working the land can be a powerful vehicle of self-determination and empowerment for Black Americans — especially in a long-neglected city like Detroit, where residents have learned the hard way not to expect change from above.”
- Grist
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“You may have heard about Detroit’s urban farming movement, but the documentary Urban Roots brings it alive by getting down in the furrows with the growers who are turning the city’s vacant lots into fields of abundance.” - Utne Reader
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“The sense that emerges from all these voices is one of Detroit agriculture as a complex social ecosystem, growing and developing in a way that is both interdependent and organic as the produce it brings to bear. This individualist, under-the-radar movement — small in acreage but ever-widening in scope and unparalleled in heart — is sowing new hope for Detroit, and by extension, a world full of dying industry and rising transportation costs. Urban Roots leaves no stone unturned, including the controversy over Hantz Farms, a larger-scale operation with an eye on being the first big investor to widen the gap created by the early pioneers.” - Knight Foundation
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