SOILent Green - Made FOR People

[Melissa Waldron Lehner]

Fair Haven, CT - “Soylent green is people!” So screams the blustering bloviator of 1970 b-film maxims, Charlton Heston [I mean, who can forget this gem,It’s a Madhouse! from that ape flick] at the end of the same titled film when he discovers that Soylent Green is not just a natural food product created to feed the starving mass of NYC in 2022, after global warming has destroyed all of Earth’s natural resources, but is actually a cannibalistic nightmare. [Catch the film and see for yourself, the New Haven Bioregional Group/Transition Greater New Haven is having a screening of this fine flick on Thursday, February 16 at 5:30 pm at the New Haven Main Library.]

I have to say that scenario doesn’t sound soooo far fetched. I mean, global climate chaos is already here and then there’s Monsanto attempting to patent our food supply…sometimes ‘70s films get it right [see Network for Paddy Chayefsky’s prescient, darkly fabulous take on the television industry.] So here’s my elevator pitch for my own movie about food security called SOILent Green. It’s about growing food for ourselves in urban areas where fresh, healthy food is now scarce and only available in out of the way and overpriced grocery bins in football field-size supermarkets. What if we spin Chuckie’s blather around and say instead that SOILent Green is made FOR people? That food security is at hand if we all put our minds, hearts and hands to work? Then this particular film could potentially have a satisfying and maybe even happy ending. And in Fair Haven, Connecticut, my sense is that we are on our way to having that happy ending right here.

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