TIFF 2022: Gabriela Cowperthwaite's revealing new documentary "The Grab"

Many documentaries are constantly being shot about climate change and its devastating impact on this planet. Before all of that, there was a doc that changed the whole conversation in the beginning - Davis Guggenheim & Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, which premiered in 2006 and won two Oscars (and tons of other prices). As climate change gets worse and worse, and there isn't much hope on the horizon to slow it down, the conversation among the powerful is now starting to change instead: what will what happens after and how can we deal with the inevitable natural disasters and social upheavals. One of the big questions looming on the horizon over the next few decades is: how will food sources and farms be affected as the world warms? Which brings us to this documentary The Grab, directed by Blackfish director Gabriela Cowperthwaite, premiering at the 2022 Toronto Film Festival. major that can change the whole conversation, just like An Inconvenient Truth did. I was in shock after watching it.

What's so shocking about The Grab and what does it tell us? Several people in the movie make it clear: the 20th century was about gaining power through control of oil, the 21st century is/will be about gaining power through control of food and water. Ohh yes, get ready, it's already happening, and it's not looking good. Various governments around the world are grabbing land, water sources, farms and livestock – buying up massive amounts of these commodities in order to prepare for the food and water crises that are brewing. It's been going on for years already - rich/powerful people are buying up farms and water all over the planet (often with oil money). But this is the first time I've seen it all presented so clearly, with such a specific focus on what's happening, why and how it's linked to climate change. And how screwed we all are… Unfortunately there is not much we can do, as citizens we can't exactly stop them from doing it. Even farmers and landowners can't do much. And that's what's really horrifying, folks.

The Grab is another "shitty" eye-opener film based on true investigative journalism revealing how food and water are the next crisis the planet will be in confronted. In fact, he's already dealing with this crisis, but it's mostly affecting third world countries right now and places on this planet that most just don't care about (tough but true). We only care about the ability of our own family to eat and perhaps the citizens of our own country. The point, however, is not that we should do anything about this, but we should look at the big picture and understand what is really going on - how the world is preparing for a battle of nation against nation once again. Saudi Arabia and China are highlighted in this film as countries taking very low-key and preemptive steps to buy and run farms in different countries to ensure their own agriculture and food supply are stable. The film also points out that when people are hungry, when they can't easily feed themselves, that's when they start to revolt, uprising, and overthrow governments. This fear drove them to make food a top priority as a method of maintaining stability and control.

The challenge of writing about documentary films like this is that I don't know exactly how to rate them. Am I giving it a high rating because it's an important topic and I want everyone to see it and think the discussion matters most? What if I have some issues with the filming, does that mean I should brush off all these minor inconveniences because it's more important for people to see this movie? The only thing I care about after watching The Grab is that everyone watches it. I hope that in the same way An Inconvenient Truth has changed the way we talk about climate change, turning it into an everyday conversation backed by hard facts from scientists and researchers, The Grab will change the way we talk about nationalism and the control of food and water. We are heading into a scary future. Most of this film is based on a group of investigative journalists recounting how they discovered all of this, how they researched it further, and what they found. There's also a revelation of the 'treasure' of emails related to one company's blatant involvement in these deals and how...