Lupines Will Abound (2020)
Lupines Will Abound, California, 2020, digital video, 17 minutes., color
This observational documentary film explores the shifting environmental impact on an idyllic Southern California citrus farm in Ventura County. The camera saunters through a burn zone as poetic text and layered field recordings immerse viewers in scorched abundance entrenched in memories.
The text is by writer, teaching artist, and lemon farmer Ellen Birrell. On the eve of Halloween 2019, a sudden conflagration pervaded her farm in Santa Paula. The farm’s standing structures and homes were protected by the lemon orchard trees that, unlike avocado trees, retain moisture. With good fortune, the Santa Ana devil winds retreated during the fire. A tremendous effort by local firefighters ensured that the farmers could return home a few days after the Maria fire ignited.
The Southern Mountain and farmland have mostly recovered since the film’s completion in August 2020. Traces of the inferno remain etched in the charred trees. New scars are forming on the farm. With the challenges brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, the farm has faced the worst year in its history. With shifts in policy and food consumption, the agricultural chain has lost its once-reliable consumers. The ongoing trade war pushed China to pull out of the US citrus market and the pandemic closed the restaurants and local school cafeterias (the farm’s proverbial bread and butter). With no market to sell their citrus and the price of fruit crashing, it is unaffordable to pick the fruit. The orchard trees that protected the farm structures a year ago are full of fallen lemons moldering before the sun, releasing methane as they dissipate.
The color of the earth is changing; there will be fire and lupines will abound. “Face forward with remembrance.”
Screenings:
Collected Voices Ethnographic Film Festival, Chicago, Illinois (online) - October 2020
Darkroom Film Festival, Deptford Cinema, London, England (online) - October 2020
Sphere World Cinema Film Festival - Kolkata, West Bengal, India (online) - May 2021
Credits:
Filmed & Edited by Cody Edison
Text by Ellen Birrell
Field Recordings by Alex Blair
Composition by Adam Zuckerman