Sierra Franklin Morton was mesmerized when she first saw the cover image of the documentary “SEEDS.” It’s an image of a black farmer with a very young family member.
“That immediately made me think of ... my papa. That was my papa, and he always called me big girl. That was my nickname for my grandpa all the time. I grew up ... more rough and tumble than the other kids. And just seeing that made me think of, ‘Oh my gosh, my grandpa.’ My grandpa lived in Wichita, but [he] also lived in old buggy Oklahoma as well.”
Franklin-Morton’s grandpa farmed in both places.
“My grandpa was an excellent grower. He loved growing melons. They were the best watermelons and cantaloupes ever.”
Franklin-Morton said farming was a way of life.
“That was something that was kind of very normalized to me. And then even here, when my grandpa wasn't here, he had a hog pen that was a little bit outside of Park City, where my dad would have to go on Saturday mornings and do the feed and everything.”
Much like the Black farmers in SEEDS, Franklin-Morton’s father did everything.
“So the whole movie, I sat there and just held my grandpa in my heart, and thought [about] how [he] would feel if he experienced this movie. Are these common archetypes of people that he knew, or people that he would traverse with when he was going to buy the feed for the livestock he had or going to buy seeds?"
In one scene, a Black farmer pulls a handful of seeds out of a bag and describes how he has to stretch his resources.
"He says he doesn't have the luxury to go to the seed store because it's $400 a bag. And it just makes me think of [how] we have that innate sense that we always have to make sure that we have something in reserve or in stock for us, or we have to find a way to make it stretch, to work for the best that we can, and that hit me a lot.”
“SEEDS” won a top Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and continues to rack up awards. Franklin says it's a powerful documentary to bring to the Tallgrass Film Festival, examining the joys and struggles of black farmers.
“We're in danger of losing these unique stories, and one thing that kind of touched my heart this year is I wanted to make sure that we have a festival that's very inclusive, that shows these very diverse stories, because I don't know what's going to happen in the next six months. I don't know what's going to happen [over] the next 24 hours. But if what we could do for this year is find a way to showcase these stories, I think that's a powerful thing for us to do.”
