FSP 161: The Simple Life: DVDs

Colin Beavan is a New York City writer and self-proclaimed liberal. He has big plans for his new book. He decides on a grand experiment: to live one year with as little impact on the environment as possible. The problem is, the project requires his wife Michelle, an espresso-guzzling, Prada-worshipping business writer, and their young daughter to be fully on board. The family embarks on a year of no electricity, television, cars, toilet paper, elevators, or newspapers.

"The True Cost is a groundbreaking new documentary film that pulls back the curtain on an unseen part of our world and asks us each to consider, who pays the price for our clothing? Filmed in countries all over the world, from the brightest runways to the darkest slums and features interviews with the world's leading influencers including Stella McCartney, Livia Firth, Vandana Shiva and many more.

A solutions-oriented documentary chronicling the current state of the U.S. meat industry, ... not through hidden cameras but through the eyes of the farmers who live and work there.

Lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing how our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profits ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. Reveals surprising--and often shocking--truths about what we eat, how it's produced and who we have become as a nation.

This documentary visits a Chinese blue-jean factory, where workers are trying to survive a harsh working environment. Over 130 million Chinese peasants, mostly young women, have left their villages in search of jobs in the globalized economy. They comprise the world's largest pool of cheap labor, and are the main producers of clothes and other commodities for Western consumers.
Also available via streaming

A feature documentary about two friends, one acre of corn, and the subsidized crop that drives our fast-food nation.

... a behind-the-scenes look into the unregulated and unseen world of an industry that aims to privatize and sell back the one resource that ought never to become a commodity: our water. From the production of plastic, to the ocean in which so many bottles end up, this...documentary follows the bottled water trail through the communities which are the unwitting chips on the corporate table.

Shocked by stories of government bureaucracies taking drastic action to shut down small family-owned farms that provide their communities with healthy, non-genetically modified foods, filmmaker Kristin Canty embarks on an eye-opening cross-country trip to find out why our right to seek out natural foods is slowly being stripped away. The result is a look at the ways that onerous regulations are having a detrimental effect on our health, and our freedom to choose what we feed to ourselves, and our children.

Documents the trend of unlabeled genetically-modified foods which have become increasingly prevalent in grocery stores. Unravels the complex web of market and political forces that are changing the nature of what we eat. Explores organic and sustainable agriculture as alternatives to large-scale industrial agriculture.

Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock embarks on a journey to find out if fast food is making Americans fat. For 30 days he can't eat or drink anything that isn't on McDonald's menu; he must eat three square meals a day, he must eat everything on the menu at least once, and supersize his meal if asked. He treks across the country interviewing a host of experts on fast food and a number of regular folk while downing McDonald's to try and find out why 37% of American are now overweight.

Monsanto Company is the world's leader in agricultural chemicals, seed and genetically modified crops, as well as being one of the most controversial companies in industrial history. This film uses hitherto unpublished documents and testimonies of victims, scientists and politicians to expose Monsanto's lack of care in protecting the environment and the health of those exposed to their products. Shows how the company promoted such products as Roundup (glyphosate), bovine growth hormone, and genetically modified plants.

Documentary about kids and food politics. Over the course of one year, the film follows two eleven year old multiracial city kids as they explore their place in the food chain.

Nourish explores the provocative question: What's the story of your food? By providing a "big picture" view of our food system, Nourish reveals the many ways that food connects to our environment, our health and our communities. Most importantly, Nourish offers specific action steps that viewers can take to help create a sustainable food future.

When a marketing executive for a huge burger chain finds a nasty secret ingredient in their burger recipe, he goes to the ranches and slaughterhouses of Colorado to investigate and finds that the truth is sometimes difficult to swallow.

"Made in L.A. traces the moving transformation of three Latina garment workers on the fault lines of global economic change who decide they must resist. Through a groundbreaking law suit and consumer boycott, they fight to establish an important legal and moral precedent holding an American retailer liable for the labor conditions under which its products are manufactured. "Made in LA" provides an insider's view into both the struggles of recent immigrants and into the organizing process itself."

Introduces viewers to careers in several corporations which practice environmental sustainability. Profiles an eco-friendly hotel, an information and communications technology consultancy, a firm that invests in green business development, and a manufacturer of chemical-free, eco-friendly cleaning products.

Documentary on child exploitation around the world including a gravel quarry in India, a Kenyan coffee plantation, a fishing platform on the Sea of Sumatra, and farms in the United States. The program shows how these and other locations depend on child workers. Includes commentary by the children themselves and by U.S. Senator Tom Harkin. The program draws a link between child exploitation and Western society.

"Stolen Childhood" is a feature length documentary on child labor. The story is told in the words of laboring children, their parents, and the people working daily to help them. Children share their experiences of exploitation and their hopes for a better life and future ... Filmed in seven countries: Brazil, India, the United States, Mexico, Indonesia, Kenya and Nepal, stolen childhoods examines the cost of child labor to the global community...

Part 18 of a series on how the globalized world economy affects ordinary people. This segment examines the lives of dalits in a small village in southern India. Identified as outcasts or 'untouchables' whole families of dalit people exist in India effectively as bonded or slave laborers.