God Save the Green (2013)

• 67%
• 2013
• Documentary
• Michele Mellara
• Alessandro Rossi

In the last few years, everywhere in the world, individuals and small groups of people have started to cultivate vegetables in their own gardens, in their allotments, in their balconies, in their terraces and in neglected places of their cities. They do that, because they want fresh and healthy food, they want to change their way of life, the place where they live and the urban environment. "God save the green" tells the stories of people who are regaining a sense of community through gardening and, at the same time, they are changing their lives and the places they live in. The stories take place in the peripheries of large and medium-sized cities in the northern and southern hemispheres: Turin, Bologna, Nairobi, Casablanca, Berlin, Teresina. The film evoke the nature beauty that can exist inside our cities. A poetical narration, based on Karel Capek and R. Borchardt texts, unfold the strong relationship between mankind and the urban nature. The narration flows into six possible and innovative routes to follow in finding a way to produce healthy and nutritious foods on one's own, perhaps even to sell some of them. The six routes are: the last garden in one of the most crowded peripheries of Casablanca; hydroponic cultivation in Teresina, Brazil; community gardens in Berlin; growing vegetables inside bags in one of Nairobi's slums; hanging gardens in Berlin, Turin and Bologna; Guerrilla gardening in Berlin.