By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Clark Johnson
Starring: Adam Beach | Christina Ricci | Christopher Walken | Luke Kirby | Martin Donovan | Peter Stebbings | Roberta Maxwell | Zach Braff
Country: canada
Year: 2021
Running time: 99
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8976696/reference
Michael says: “I’m sure many of you saw the documentary THE CORPORATION when it was released in 2004. One segment of this harrowing tale featured a lawsuit brought to bear on a Canadian farmer after he unknowingly grew and harvested genetically engineered crops from seeds that had blown into his field by the wind. PERCY VS. GOLIATH is a Canadian film that presents a dramatized version of this story, and one farmer’s battle to prevent a massive corporation for shaping the future of farming internationally. It really is a rather fascinating story, and I was worried the film would come off a bit simplistic, or over-dramatized in the way issue films can do. Percy Schmeiser is a family farmer, whose son has decided to follow a different path, who is struggling to stay profitable while huge corporations balloon around him forcing smaller competitors out of the industry. Schmeiser is a believer of sorting seeds at the end of each season, separating the hardiest from the weakest and only planting the former in the upcoming season. When some of the GMO seeds are blown into his field, naturally, being among the hardiest, they find themselves reused the following year. When Percy is called out on this illegal use of patented material, he is flummoxed. When an environmental legal group monitoring the corporations actions catches wind of this, they send a young lawyer up to help Percy fight them. As Percy’s case grows in notoriety, climbing eventually to the Supreme Court, he becomes internationally known from speaking at rallies and conferences. A moment when he travels to India and is taken by an Indian farmer to a local farm, becomes a lovely central rallying point to show how global this issue truly is.