The Ants and the Grasshopper – film screening and discussion

Join Haslingfield & Harlton Eco and Sustainable Shepreth for this film screening and discussion. Anita Chitaya has a gift; she can bring food from parched soil, she can make men join the 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 yet: 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 some Americans to believe they 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.

This film, which encourages us to “Think Globally, Act Locally,” brings the impact of climate change in Africa into sharp focus through Anita’s first hand experiences. Her courage, sensitivity and belief in the possibility of change are moving and inspiring. As well as climate change the film considers issues of race, class and gender, and provides much food for thought. After the screening we will have time for a discussion around some of the issues, feelings and ideas the film has raised.