THE ANTS & THE GRASSHOPPER

2021
Feature Documentary

Directed by Raj Patel and Zak Piper
Edited by John Farbrother, Katarina Simic
Producers Cynthia Kane, Peter Mazunda, Rachel Wexler
Executive Producers Julie Goldman, Gordon Quinn,
Betsy Steinberg, Jolene Pinder, Steve James
Kartemquin Films

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 skeptics 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.

Moving Mountains Award Mountainfilm Doc Film Fest
Gaia Prize for Environmental Filmmaking Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival
Best Documentary CentreFilm Festival
Green Fire Award American Conservation Film Festival
Jury Award Wild & Scenic Film Festival
Sheffield DocFest
ReFrame Film Festival
Human Rights Film Festival Berlin
Ashland Independent Film Festival
Toronto Black Film Festival
Alt Eff
Three River Film Festival

“I am blown away. You have found a hero of such grace and intelligence and power, and you had the good sense to get out of the way, center the narrative on her. The film is obviously not about agriculture in the way I expected to be–it’s much bigger than that. We get to observe history. That’s what ten years on a movie gets you.”
–Michael Pollan
Author & Director of the Knight Program in Science and Environmental Journalism

“The film is lovely, so moving and so touching. Anita Chitaya has plenty to teach us…I think it’s Oscar-worthy.”
–Marion Nestle
Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, & Public Health, New York University, Emerita