217. Turkish director Semih Kaplanoglu’s film “Grain” (Bugday) (2017) (Turkey), in English, based on his original screenplay co-scripted with his wife: A sci-fi film on an agricultural scenario that could be real in the near future, with theological understatements

G rain is a very important film of 2017. It is an important film for several reasons. Globally, very few feature films have dealt with agriculture as the focal point. In India, several important films were made on social themes related to agriculture— Mother India (1957), Do Bigha Zameen (Two acres of land) (1953) and Upkar (Good Deed) (1967) are examples. China’s Red Sorghum similarly dealt with society more rather than agriculture. Even the celebrated Russian film, Dovzhenko’s Earth (1930) dealt with social issues of collective farming rather than agriculture per se . Semih Kapalonglu’s Grain is a rare feature film where the focus is more on agriculture and science, and less on the social fallouts. A rare film that could be compared to Grain in content is Richard Fleischer’s Soylent Green (1973)—a Hollywood film on a bizarre industrial response to alarming global food shortages. Prof Erin (Barr) finally stumbles on an underground store of true, unc...