Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/76686
art & soul FILM BItteR SeeDS Directed by Micha X. peled Bitter Seeds is the third film in producer-director Micha X. Peled's "Global- ization Triology." This time he turns his focus on Monsanto and the geneti- cally modified cotton seeds that have replaced nearly all conventional cotton seeds in central India. This is a hard-hitting doc about an epidemic of suicides in this farming living by saving seeds year-to-year to plant crops that needed nothing more than cow dung as fertilizer. Those seeds have gradually been replaced over the past 16 years by genetically modified, non- culture. According to the producers, a quarter of a million Indian cotton farmers have taken their lives over the past 16 years, and three more will do so in the time it takes to view the movie. What's behind this catastrophe? In the past, generations of subsistence-level farmers managed to eke out a renewable seeds created and patented by bio-engineering giant Monsanto. Although promoted as pro- viding higher yields with less fertilization (and being insect resistant), the reality is that they do neither effectively in this particular terrain and climate. With failing crops, farmers are forced to borrow money, and end up so deeply in debt to both banks and moneylenders that they are unable to provide for their families. In despair, many farmers drink pesticide, a final indictment of the source of their struggles. Peled tells this story through a young village woman who is studying to be a journalist. She has depth of its issues is too complex to be discussed thoroughly in this limited space, but the global impact should not be underestimated. Bitter Seeds, and the tragic story behind it, is a red alert to the changes Monsanto is making in the world's agriculture. CUt pOISON BURN Directed by wayne Chesler "You have cancer." Three of the most dreaded words in the English language. Because even if you "recover" from cancer, the cure is often worse than the disease. Cut Poi name, takes us on a ride through an American medical system that is set up to profit from cancer—but not from its cure or prevention. There are promis- ing drugs and non-invasive therapies that exist, but their use, and the cure of cancer, would put an end to America's billion-dollar cancer business. With few exceptions (testicular and cervical cancers), cancer mortality thought-provoking, often heartbreaking trip in- side life with cancer. The film, based on a stage play by the same son Burn is a would not allow him access to the one doctor his family thought could save his life, insisting that he first undergo radiation and chemotherapy (modalities that are actually not FDA-approved for children and could leave a child in a vegetative state). By the time Thomas was allowed to try the alternative therapy, it was too late. Director Wayne Chesler also points his camera at the American Cancer Place Your Ad NOW for our next 3 issues and receive a 3x discount! Food for Health & Pleasure Oct/NOv Celebration & Renewal Dec/JAN already lost her father, and her uncle seems to be teetering on the edge. She wants to know what's driving the men of her own village and others nearby to take this drastic, final step. Bitter Seeds is beautifully shot and immediately immerses the viewer into life in Telung Takli. The full —Jacquelin Sonderling Feb/MAr Love & Sex 310.425.3056 rates have remained the same since Richard Nixon first declared war on the disease in 1971. Neither has treatment moved forward; doctors still cut out the tumor, burn the area with radiation and poison the entire body with chemotherapy. It's a treatment triumvirate that often leaves the patient sicker than before. This controversial documentary follows the lives of several people with cancer seeking choices in their treatment. Most painful to watch is 4-year- old Thomas, ill with a particularly virulent brain cancer. The FDA reportedly 42 wholelifetimesmagazine.com Society (ACS), one of the nation's wealthiest nonprofits, with a $1 billion dollar annual budget. While the organization's mission is to cure cancer, we're told the group spends barely 10 percent of its budget on research, yet its CEO takes home more than $1 million annually. The film also reports the ACS's history of siding with the medical establishment, specifi- cally blocking women's access to the Pap test for nearly three decades, thereby condemning thousands of women to painful and needless death from cervical cancer. The organization whose job it is to save lives instead seems to have cost lives. Cut Poison Burn should make everyone who sees it angry. But it's as much a condemnation of the current system as it is a call for change. Instead of staying stuck in a past that doesn't work, its message is to allow doctors to be free to innovate, to move medicine forward—and to heal. —JS