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Two of the women featured in this film came to a meeting of VG4A when we showed the film through Movie Mondays. “Magnificent and inspirational.” Award-winning documentary film about South African women sowing the seeds of change in the context of climate crisis, poverty, and HIV/AIDS. 35 minutes, xiTsonga with English subtitles. Director Christine Welsh. Q&A with researcher/co-writer Dr. Elizabeth Vibert. Part of UVic's Global Days.
This award-winning 2017 documentary film (35 min), directed by Indigenous filmmaker Christine Welsh, has played at film festivals on four continents. It tells the story, in their own voices, of three generations of women in a village in South Africa who created a community garden. They called it “the thinking garden” – hleketani in the xiTsonga language – a place where women gather to think about how to effect change.
Thirty years later the garden is still going strong, providing fresh vegetables and new opportunities for local people while helping to confront the ravages of climate change, poverty, and HIV/AIDS in a community pushed to the edge.
Beautifully filmed against the backdrop of an epic drought, The Thinking Garden tells the uplifting story of what can happen when older women take matters into their own hands and how local action in food production can give even the most vulnerable people a measure of control over their food and their futures.
