The vision behind Candour has always been to create space to tell important stories alongside the commercial work without interfering agendas.
Director Statement
The food industry is broken.
As consumers, we have grown to demand a wide variety of produce all year round at a tiny cost. This has had a huge impact on farmers’ lives, the climate, animal welfare and rural communities across the country. 88% of farmers under 40 rank poor mental health as the biggest hidden problem in the industry and it’s no surprise. An endemic of loneliness has taken hold, with more and more tasks traditionally requiring a team now only needing one person along with their machinery, which is compounded by the stress of the high-value loans required to keep up with the demand placed on them by supermarkets and the like. As scale and efficiency has been prioritised, the lives of the animals have been pulled further away from what is natural for them and the food that they depend on has been outsourced to monolithic, habitat destroying Soya farms spread across the world.
The seemingly innocuous desire for convenience and ‘good value’ produce has distorted what could be a balanced, holistic collaboration of man and nature that has sustained us for countless generations. Thankfully there are people who are trying to change the game.
Faith in the Soil is a film about a small-scale organic farm based in Somerset trying to do just that. We had the privilege of visiting them over a couple of years attempting to capture the vast array of things that they do, the beautiful simplicity of ancient ecosystems being restored and most strikingly the spirit of the community that it takes to run a farm. The health of the land and wellbeing of the animals was clear to see from the start, but the most apparent hallmark of the farm was the way in which the people worked together, cared for one another and ultimately found belonging as a wider family.
Our hope for this film is twofold, that it will encourage people to think about their own habits as consumers and also that it will help to spread a different way of farming that is sustainable in the full sense of the word and ultimately better for everyone involved.
Environmental Film and Screenplay Festival 