Greenfield White Belt

Feature Documentary

SYNOPSIS

A White Belt is defined as rural land bordering an expanding city. It has been designated to accommodate urban growth in the coming years. The film follows women, men and their families whose lives are centred in and around the White Belt in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). Toronto is an example of similar situations in cities all over North America and other parts of the world.

A White Belt could also be considered a metaphor; people in a time and place who are living the slow transition between rural and urban-based societies. 

FILMMAKER'S STATEMENT

Land development can be a high-stakes and politically-polarizing issue. To address that, I'd like to make a few points about what the film is NOT, followed by what it IS.

The film is NOT investigative journalism or activism. It isn’t for or against urbanization. There are no heroes or villains. At the same time, the film is NOT romantic or nostalgic about rural life and farm communities.

The film IS an art project. It could be defined as visual/auditory poetry. It IS a sociological, academic, lyrical essay seen from the thirty-thousand foot level.

We aim to capture the experiences of a diversity of participants, everything caught on-the-fly as events unfold in an observational documentary style. There are no interviews and there is no voice over. The film and the filmmakers are neutral. There is no judgement, opinion or heavy editorialization.

Each scene in the film (with each group of participants in their separate locations) can be compared to chapters in a nonfiction book, distinct from the other chapters.

OVERVIEW

The goal of the feature documentary is to spend extended periods of time filming with people in the geographic and metaphoric White Belt. We capture a unique and diverse part of the twenty-first century experience that's happening in many parts of the world but has rarely been documented in depth.

The people and families we meet in the film have roots in or near the White Belt. This is their home. This is their community. They are farmers, garden centre owners, construction workers, cafe owners, agri-tourism operators, teachers, retirees, artists and entrepreneurs. They are new Canadians, Indigenous Canadians and multi-generation descendants of European settlers. We see their stories through their eyes in an observation style, without comment or manipulation by the filmmakers.

The film sets out to examine a gigantic and nebulous social metamorphosis — the transformation from a rural-based society to an urban one. It may be the most significant social and cultural change in the last half century. The White Belt is the frontline in the slow transition from rural to urban yet it is something that's often overlooked.