SEEDS OF LIFE

Directed by Diya Payal (India)

Regenerative Farming

Diya Payal, a 14-year-old in India, explores how biodiverse farming keeps us in harmony with our environment and ourselves.

Diya tells the story of generations of Indian farmers who live off the land and sell the surplus, and the importance of maintaining traditional organic seeds versus genetically modified seeds. She explores how industrial-scale farming can lead to local habitat loss, invasive species, water and air pollution and global warming.

Her film takes us to the Navdanya Biodiversity Farm, an initiative to promote organic farming and fair trade, and to one of its community seed banks. SEEDS OF LIFE stresses the need to educate globally about sustainable farming and food practices, with critical lessons for the preservation of humankind itself.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT:

”Food and farming is deeply connected to our spiritual and cultural relationship with the natural world. I wanted to share this idea with other young people, in the hope that we will choose to coexist in harmony with nature for the future of the planet and humanity too.”
—Diya Payal

MENTOR’S STATEMENT:

It was so rewarding to witness Diya’s growing interest in filmmaking, evolving clarity around the story she wanted to tell and emerging confidence in her own voice. While Diya learned things from me, I also learned things from her: She and her community live in a way we can all aspire to and could achieve in our own way. It’s possible to live a modern life with a small ecological footprint and with respect to community, ancestry and the natural world on which we all depend.
—Camilla Becket