Green Rush

A cannabis farmer and his pregnant lover fight for their lives when ruthless criminals invade their property.

A collection of brief moments, filmed between 1999 and 2018 on journeys, at home, with friends and alone. They are private gestures that attract my attention, spontaneously filmed beyond narration or documentary: Anton in his apartment in Lichtenberg, Lilian and Nanouk 10 days old, Jón’s 94th birthday, Sofia dancing, James and Robert transport the 16mm projector, snow at Cape Cod, Detel in her atelier, Franz and Sabrina get married, a trip to Detroit, a stormy sea in black-and-white, Alma and Ernie at the Brandenburger Gate. We see the same people at various ages, as a child, as a teenager, as a young woman… sometimes hear someone speaking, hear music, or silence. Somewhere in the middle of the film there is a handwritten sentence that appears upside down before it gets turned around: “A child asleep in its own life”.

This sympathetic documentary looks at the issues confronting one group of Northern California pot growers and articulates the frustrations they face in a unique business that many regard as the most practical way to feed their families. For decades, outlaw marijuana cultivation has been a huge "hidden" industry fueling much of the region's economy, but pot farmers have remained subject to harassment and arrest by federal law-enforcement agencies.

Efforts to move Britain into the modern age don't sit well with the people of the small village of Anderia Marsh, who have claimed a right (going back to Henry III) to evade government-imposed import duties and taxes. And when the government decides to curb this right, the whole village quietly rises up in a comical rebellion. After their vessel runs aground during a storm and is impounded by the British authorities, local smugglers must find a way of disposing of their contraband brandy cargo before it's discovered by the Customs Officers.

The U.S. war on pot is not over, as penalties and jail time are still a threat.