The Last Beekeeper

The Last Beekeeper, which premiered at Austin's SXSW Film Festival, takes a very personal look at an underreported emerging environmental crisis. The film focuses on the struggles of 3 beekeepers as they deal with the consequences of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). The film provides a crash course in the economics of beekeeping while simultaneously showing the personal link between the bees and the beekeepers and how all our lives are connected to the survival of the bees. The film centers on the yet as unresolved scientific riddle of what is killing the bees and thereby threatening the future of our food supply. But by focusing as well on the beekeepers as well the film makers have made it a much more personal film that explores a human tragedy and not just a scientific mystery. The connection of the beekeepers to there is reminiscent of two excellent feature films that include beekeeping themes: Peter Fonda's Ulee's Gold and the recent film, The Secret Life of Bees.

The filming is quite beautiful and the characters are well-developed and compelling. This is a story that needs to be told, because it is important to our future as a planet. Our future is interconnected with that of the bees and the mystery of their future needs to be untangled.