Canary Island Bananas

Directed by Richard Leacock

A short documentary made by Richard Leacock at the age of fourteen on his father’s banana plantation in the Canary Islands. Inspired by Soviet industrial films such as Turksib, the film traces the planting, harvesting, and preparation of bananas for shipment, using fluid pans and tilts to organize labor into a continuous visual sequence. Often cited as Leacock’s earliest completed film, it attracted the attention of Robert Flaherty and foreshadowed Leacock’s later observational documentary style.