Independent Lens: Dirt! The Movie on WXXI-TV

Slow food founder Carlo Petrini: healthy food = healthy dirt.

Credit: Common Ground Media

Independent Lens delves into the fascinating history of this lowly substance and shows how its mistreatment can result in natural disasters.

Inspired by William Bryant Logan’s acclaimed book Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth, find out how industrial farming, mining and urban development have led us toward cataclysmic droughts, starvation, floods and climate change. Dirt is a part of everything we eat, drink and breathe. Which is why we should stop treating it like, well…dirt.

Dirt! The Movie airs Tuesday, April 20 at 10 p.m. on WXXI-TV (DT21.1/cable 1011 & 11).

Narrated by award-winning actress, author and social activist Jamie Lee Curtis, “DIRT! The Movie” delves into the fascinating history of this lowly substance, explaining how four billion years of evolution have created the dirt that recycles our water, gives us food, provides us shelter and can be used as a source of medicine, beauty and culture. But people have become greedy and careless, endangering this vital living resource with destructive methods of agriculture, mining practices and urban development. This abusive behavior has yielded catastrophic results: mass starvation, drought, floods and global warming. But as the film shows, times are changing — brown is the new green. Filmmakers Bill Benensen and Gene Rosow traveled to more than 20 locations around the world, visiting renowned global visionaries who are discovering new ways of thinking as they come together to repair this natural resource with practical, viable solutions.