Percy

Percy Schmeiser is a third generation farmer in Canada. He grows canola and saves his own seed to sow again the next year; he has worked that way for forty years. One day a letter arrives. A large agricultural company accuses him of patent infringement: their patented seed has been found in his field. Percy did not buy that seed; the wind or passing trucks may have carried it. The company does not consider that. Percy refuses to pay. The case begins and a local farmer's quarrel turns into an international argument. Clark Johnson directs. Christopher Walken plays Percy; Roberta Maxwell, Christina Ricci and Zach Braff are in the cast. It is a Canadian production. The events are real; Percy Schmeiser's case ran for years in Canada and reached the highest court. The court found infringement but accepted that Schmeiser had not profited from the seed, and no damages were awarded. The case became a reference worldwide on the question of seed patents. The matter it treats is who owns a seed; the film builds it as a question of law. Christopher Walken's performance is calm and the character is not drawn as an activist. The narrative also touches on the farmers' movement in India and widens the subject. Its limit is structure; the narrative proceeds close to a shape and the courtroom sections are simplified. Who it is for: anyone curious about true legal cases and agricultural policy. Who it is not for: the shape is familiar, the pace slow, and the argument delivered directly.