As talk of legalization swept through California’s Humboldt and Mendocino counties in 2016, local marijuana growers remained cautiously optimistic. After decades of helicopter flyovers, DEA raids, and living life in the shadows, growers traded fears of prosecution for anxiety over what an influx of big money could do to their hard-won industry. Filmed over four years, “Lady Buds” While a few characters are as colorful as one would imagine, most are simply hard-working entrepreneurs trying to stay afloat. The feminist film does their stories justice through an empathetic if disappointingly dry lens.
Filmmaker Chris J. Russo became interested in the subject matter after reading a statistic that women held 36 percent of leadership positions in the cannabis industry, the highest percentage of any other emerging market in the U.S. Focusing on six main subjects, plus a few supporting characters, “Lady Buds” struggles to find a human narrative, even among a plethora of eccentrics.
Filmmaker Chris J. Russo became interested in the subject matter after reading a statistic that women held 36 percent of leadership positions in the cannabis industry, the highest percentage of any other emerging market in the U.S. Focusing on six main subjects, plus a few supporting characters, “Lady Buds” struggles to find a human narrative, even among a plethora of eccentrics.
- 11/27/2021
- by Jude Dry
- Indiewire
The recent indie drama “Freeland” is about a fictive longtime Northern California pot grower whose life only becomes more complicated — and her business less viable — when the state legalizes the hitherto-criminalized industry. New documentary “Lady Buds” features several of that character’s real-world equivalents, women whose entrepreneurial (as well as agricultural) skills are transitioning to a very different era for the marijuana marketplace.
. But while the personalities spotlit here are easy to root for, what emerges is less an upbeat look at female enterprise than yet another case of corporate money and political mechanizations killing off community-based small businesses to further enrich their deep-pocketed, invasive new rivals. It’s an ultimately depressing trajectory, though the film itself remains engaging and well crafted. Gravitas Ventures is releasing to limited theaters and VOD on Nov. 26.
After a short dramatization of how things used to be (a surreptitious exchange of garbage bags o...
. But while the personalities spotlit here are easy to root for, what emerges is less an upbeat look at female enterprise than yet another case of corporate money and political mechanizations killing off community-based small businesses to further enrich their deep-pocketed, invasive new rivals. It’s an ultimately depressing trajectory, though the film itself remains engaging and well crafted. Gravitas Ventures is releasing to limited theaters and VOD on Nov. 26.
After a short dramatization of how things used to be (a surreptitious exchange of garbage bags o...
- 11/23/2021
- by Dennis Harvey
- Variety Film + TV
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