Saturday 10th September

Time: 6.15pm. DALYMOUNT, Phibsboro

with Aoife Barry, Sydney Snow, Samuel Arnold Keane and Lauren Boland

 On Saturday 10 September, BEFF will be screening Ants and the Grasshopper, a documentary in which activist Anita Chitaya travels from Malawi to California to the White House to persuade Americans that climate change is real.

To celebrate this screening, we will hosting be a special panel event on Connecting Food Sovereignty to the Climate Story. Drawing inspiration from the film, the panel will look at food sovereignty and the climate crisis, with reflections on how filmmaking and other creative practices can help catalyse a broader understanding of both.

What is Food Sovereignty?

Food sovereignty is the principle that peoples have the fundamental right to define their own food and agriculture systems. It means societies being able to grow and consume food which is economically, ecologically, socially and culturally appropriate to local conditions as opposed to imposed by speculative financial market forces and transnational corporations.

 Aoife Barry is an assistant news editor and reporter at TheJournal.ie, working across news and arts/culture topics. She’s a regular contributor to national radio shows including Arena, Today with Claire Byrne and The Last Word, and is a co-producer of the weekly podcast The Explainer. Her personal writing can be found at aoifebarry.com.

 Lauren Boland is a reporter at The Journal with a focus on the climate crisis. She authors The Journal’s monthly climate newsletter Temperature Check and covers issues related to climate action, energy, and the impacts of climate change, as well as a broader interest in political and Irish news. Lauren has featured in news programmes on radio and television and regularly contributes to Newstalk FM’s On The Record. She was awarded Newcomer of the Year at the Justice Media Awards 2022. In 2020/21, she was the Editor-in-Chief of Trinity News, during which time she produced a special edition supplement dedicated to climate issues. She is commencing a Master’s Degree in Climate Change at Dublin City University in September 2022.

 Sydney Snow is the Climate Policy and Advocacy Director at Oatly’s Climate/Culture Lab , where she works with the Lab team on future-scouting, audacious, business-and-culture-leading pilot projects across the global organization. 

At Oatly and beyond, Sydney is deeply committed to helping transform the food industry by utilizing environmental justice principles, enabling people to change the way they eat and the way we grow food for a better future for people and the planet. Prior to Oatly, Sydney served as the Senior Political Director for Climate Power, where she led a team of seasoned political strategists to shift climate politics and policy in the United States election cycles. Sydney began her career in the public sector, at the White House Environmental Council, helping launch President Barack Obama’s U.S. Climate Action Plan. Sydney has a B.A. in Journalism and Mass Communications from North Carolina A&T State University and a Juris Doctorate degree from the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University. Today, Sydney lives in Washington, DC in the U.S. with her loving dog Reya.  

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