Groundswell, A Thought-Provoking Documentary Premiers At Cannes
Narrated and executive produced by Woody Harrelson and Demi Moore, the film takes a global look at how regenerative agriculture is already reversing environmental damage in real time…
Groundswell is a moving documentary, the last of a trilogy directed by award-winning filmmakers, Josh and Rebecca Harrell Tickellabout a topic that many of us may not know much about: regeneration that has just premiered at the 79th Cannes Film Festival. Narrated by actors and executive producers of the documentary Demi Moore and Woody Harrelson, it certainly is an eye opener.
Actress Angelina Jolie has been known to say that the purpose of film is to “make you upset,” for the purpose of provoking, challenging, and connecting people through an emotional experience. Groundswell will do this if you care about the planet, even if you consider yourself ignorant to all things eco-friendliness.
What I came away with watching Groundswell is being ever so reminded that God has given us this planet. We only get one Earth and it’s really a gift if you take the time to think about it. But, we have to co-partner with God to care for this planet and steward it with care, patience, selflessness, and an active spirit. The Earth, specifically regeneration cannot happen on its own. I mean, the Earth would regenerate just fine if human weren’t on it. Ouch, harsh I know. But if it was just nature and animals, the planet would carry on just fine. It’s we humans that must look at ourselves, our ambitious building projects, and industrial agriculture that cause deforestation, species extinction, catastrophic soil loss, carbon deficit soil, and global warming, and we must ask ourselves what is that we really want from life.
Photo provided by Amazon Prime Video
The Tickell’s help us with this question and international evaluations of how we care for the planet. From the beginning of the documentary, both Demi Moor and Wood Harrelson present the problem of desertification- essentially explaining that our continents are drying up due to tree removal, which has led to increasingly hot summers. So much life is in our soil, and in order to continue enjoying our lives, we have to treat our soil right.
“Don’t treat the soil like dirt.”
This line stuck out to me. There’s life beneath our feet and our soil which grows food, produces certain fibers for our clothing, feeds animals, is filled with micro-organisms. In order for these organisms to stay alive, they need carbon which helps water to be held in the ground for long periods. Think sand, there are not nutrients in it when it’s dry, because there is not moisture.
Quite simply, we need these organisms to stay alive so we as humans can stay alive. Those interviewed in the documentary, pro-regenerators are all about encouraging communities to put carbon in the ground.
Taking viewers around the world we see how a farm for refugees in Uganda increase food security by creating u-shaped wells that they equate to smiling due to the shape. The money that these wells generate also helps families to send their kids to school. We also see in Africa, how pro-regenerators are pushing back against the Sahara Desert from moving further south, and with the growth of forests, deserts are rebuilding. They’re calling this a green wall that’s rebuilding deserts.
Coffee farms in Colombia are not only bringing biodiversity, but they are contributing to conservation where birds are flocking to forests where coffee is grown beside banana trees- which is a push back against monoculture. This is plant life and animal life cohabiting in the midst of regeneration. In Brazil farmers are being paid to plant seeds in their forests that gives way to agroforestry.
In the American South, in Georgia, regenerative farming is thriving for cattlemen. Cattle are moved from field to field, to graze, as opposed to staying in the same field all the time. By moving cattle, the land can regenerate and carbon can be added back into the soil, which increase food security for a community, a city, a state, and the country if other cattlemen take this approach as well.
Actress Demi Moore with Groundswell filmmakers, Josh and Rebecca Harrell Tickell | Photo provided by Amazon Prime Video
The documentary shows how all the continents (minus Antarctica) have people that are passionate about regeneration and making it envogue. McDonald’s Pepsico, and Nestle are a few companies committed to regenerative agriculture. When we’re committed to regeneration grasslands breathe again, rivers run clean, and species return.
Kiss the Ground, the first film in the trilogy narrated by Woody Harrelson, Gisele Bündchen, Tom Brady, and Patricia Arquette brought soil health into the mainstream through a big-tent, celebrity-and-scientist narrative. Common Ground, featuredLaura Dern, Jason Momoa, Rosario Dawson, Donald Glover, and Woody Harrelson; andpushed past the "why" into the "what's blocking it," spotlighting policy, power, and public health while elevating farmer-led solutions and systems accountability. And, Groundswell closes the arc, connecting the solutions for climate change, species loss, and soil loss into one global call for regeneration.
The pressing point is that nature can heal itself but it needs our help. God gave us this planet but he also needs us to care, sit up, and do our part to care for it. The Earth can do what it was created to do, heal and renew itself, but it can’t do it alone, in the midst of ambitions human projects that push back against its ability to naturally heal and renew. Groundswell is poignant charge that we must save the soil. Our lives depend on it.
The documentary will be available on Prime Video this summer.
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