A City of Opportunity

While working for Do Detroit for the past three weeks, I have been afforded the opportunity to explore the wide variety of interesting people, projects, and events Detroit has to offer. Even with the long hours sitting in front of my computer entering contact information into our ever-expanding database, I truly am fascinated by the breadth of people who inhabit this city.

In a previous entry I mentioned one of my passions is indie film and when—over the course of my research—I discovered the new documentary short, The Farmer and the Philosopher, I was ecstatic. In 8-minutes, filmmaker Andrea Adelman concisely outlines two complimentary plans for the resurgence of Detroit, which left me entertained as well as informed.

The Farmer and the Philosopher examines the City of Detroit through the eyes of an urban farmer and community organizer, Mark Covington (Georgia Street Community Collective) and ad man and writer, Tom Barlow (Team Detroit/Huffington Post). While these two come from two different worlds within Detroit, they both share a passion for this city in transition. Produced by Detroit Lives!, the short details the visions each man has for the continued evolution of Detroit.

Tom, a 2006 transplant from New York, proclaims falling in love with the city immediately. His assertions of Detroit being rich in community and opportunity litter his commentary of Detroit being the city of the future. He envisions the city’s dreamers as being the driving force behind the Detroit’s revitalization.

One of those driving forces is Mark. Since 2008, he has enriched the lives his neighborhood’s youth through his community garden project. Even though Mark calls himself a dreamer, his vision for Detroit’s future is grounded in reality. He acknowledges that to help Detroit grow, the doers must cultivate the ideas planted by the dreamers.

Music from local musician Alan Scheurman bookends the short. The Farmer and the Philosopher is now available for viewing on Current.

---Gill