A Film Lover’s Guide

posted by brooklynfoodconference, on April 30, 2009

A couple of film aficionados—Jay Tran and Faye Lederman—spent many hours watching films to find the three very best that could be shown at a one-day conference on food issues. To help you decide what to see on Saturday (or to rent later), here’s our special annotated film menu that also includes other films at the conference (not just Jay and Faye’s picks):

• Life & Debt (2001, 86 minutes)—Stephanie Black’s documentary on the impact of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and globalization policies on Jamaica. “The movie offers the clearest analysis of globalization and its negative effects that I’ve ever seen on a movie or television screen,” said Stephen Holden in the New York Times.
  Guest Speaker: Mimi Rosenberg from radio station WBAI. Filmmaker Stephanie Black invited.
  When/Where: 11:45 am, John Jay 238
  Why We Picked It: “Tackles an incredibly complex story…has a rich poetic quality… artfully touches on a broad range of issues that underlie many of the conversations that will happen at the Food Conference.”—Faye. “I liked it because it shows how these policies that we hear about all the time affect people, communities, a country and a whole region. The whole country was lead down the road of debt, the new slavery. This movie really puts it into perspective.” —Jay
  Times Review | Trailer

• Super Size Me (2004)—For 30 days, 32-year-old Morgan Spurlock ate nothing but McDonald’s. He gained 24½ lbs. and his body mass increased 13%.  He also had mood swings, sexual dysfunction, and liver damage, but his film did get an Academy Award nomination.
  When/Where: 11:45 am, John Jay 216
  Why We Picked It: (Not a Faye and Jay pick)
  Roger Ebert Review | Trailer

• Unnatural Selection/Life Running Out of Control (60 minutes)—Bertram Verhaag and Jeff Smith’s documentary shows the harsh consequences of genetic engineering on three continents, including uncontrollable, self-replicating GM canola contamination in Canada, a failed GM cotton crop and farmer suicides in India, GM salmon that might wipe out natural fish populations and deformed GM livestock created by the US government.
  Guest Speaker—Meredith Miles, Center for Food Safety
  When/Where—1:30, John Jay 238
  Why We Picked It— “Sort of boot-camp education for me. While it’s a real send-up of GMO practices, it didn’t feel didactic or alarmist to me. Instead I took away a measured, cautionary message.” —Faye. “There’s something very believable about a scientific argument.” —Jay.
  Trailer

• Flow (2008, 84 minutes)—How did a handful of corporations steal our water? “Irena Salina’s astonishingly wide-ranging film is less depressing than galvanizing, an informed and heartfelt examination of the tug of war between public health and private interests,” said Jeannette Catsoulis of the New York Times.
  Guest Speakers from Food and Water Watch (who sponsored this screening)—Denise Hart (Deputy Director of Water Program) and Rachel Richardson
  When/Where—3:00 in John Jay 238
  Why We Picked It—”A political message so compelling that it quickly jumped to the top of our programming list”—Faye. “Water is something that almost every culture on earth outside of ours looks at as a blessing from the gods. We’re burying spent uranium on top of water aquifers, dumping waste into our rivers, and we see our oceans as giant garbage dumps.  This film shows how communities are dealing with the privatization of water.” —Jay
  Wendy Blake’s blog| Trailer

• What’s on Your Plate (2009, clips) Catherine Gund’s film follows two 11-year-old African-American city kids as they take a close look at food systems in New York City and its surrounding areas. They talk to each other, food activists, farmers, new friends, storekeepers, their families, and the viewer, in their quest to understand what’s on all of our plates. “It was an amazing experience to hear kids talking about these issues,” said chef Alice Waters. “This movie can have a real impact on the way we think about what we’re eating.”
  When/Where—PS 321, no time given (sometime between 11 and 3)
  Guest Speakers—Filmmaker Catherine Gund plus her two young stars—Sadie Rain Hope-Gund and Safiyah Kai Russell Riddle.
  Trailer

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Plus a special pre-conference film on Friday night

• Fresh (2008, 72 minutes)—Brooklynite Ana Sofia Joanes’s film celebrates the farmers, thinkers and business people across America who are re-inventing our food system and forging healthier, sustainable alternatives for the future of the planet. Featuring Milwaukee urban farmer and activist, Will Allen who won a 2008 MacArthur Genius Award, and sustainable farmer and entrepreneur, Joel Salatin, made famous by Michael Pollan’s book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma.
  When—Friday, May 1 at 7:00 PM
  Where—Park Slope Food Coop, 2nd Floor, 782 Union Street
  Guest Speaker— Ana Sofia Joanes
  Why We Picked It—”I can tell you very quickly why I liked this film. One is it’s great film. It’s entertaining and very informative. It’s about very real people doing heroic, creative and very doable things. Two,  it’s by a local filmmaker.”—Jay
  Review | Trailer

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Who Picked ‘Em?
Jay Tran has been on the Food Coop’s Safe Food Committee since its inception. He’s also a composer/musician/film buff whose music can be heard in Melis Birder’s films The Visitors about the women and children who visit their loved ones in upstate New York prisons and The Tenth Planet: A Single Life in Baghdad.

Faye Lederman is a documentary filmmaker (Women of the Wall, A Good Uplift and The New Old Country). She served on the steering committee of New Day Films, a cooperative of independent social issue media makers, and has taught at the School of Visual Arts. And she’s made her own food documentary. It’s about a matzoh ball-eating contest, and it’s called Hold the Soup.

This blogger begged them for their list of Faye and Jay’s Other Food Issue Faves. I want to rent them in the months ahead.  “We’re going to give it out at the conference,” said Trans.  But I got him to give me an advance copy. Enjoy.

Faye and Jay’s Other Faves

• Asparagus! Stalking the American Life (Anne de Mare and Kirsten Kelly)
• Black Coffee (Irene Angelico)
• Black Gold: A Film about Coffee and Trade (Nick Francis, Mark Francis)
• A Disaster in Search of Success : Bt Cotton in Global South (women farmers of The Community Media Trust)
• The Fight in The Fields: Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers’ Struggle
  (Rick Tejada-Flores and Ray Telles)
• Future Of Food (Deborah Koons Garcia)
• Food Fight (Christopher Taylor)
• The Future of Agriculture (Deccan Development Society)
• Greenhorns (work-in-progress by Severine von Tscharner Fleming)
• Immokolee, U.S.A. (Georg Koszulinski)
• Hybrid: One Man’s Passion For Corn (Monteith McCollum)
• King Corn (Aaron Woolf)
• Making of an Agricultural Biodiversity Register (Deccan Development Society)
• The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil (Arthur Morgan Institute for Community Solutions)
• The Real Cost of Our Food: Agriculture in California’s Central Valley (Rachel Sonia Alexander, email her at rachelsoniaalexander at gmail.com)
• The Real Dirt on Farmer John (Taggart Seigel)
• Thirst: Fighting the Corporate Theft of our Water (Alan Snitow, Deborah Kaufman)
• Two Angry Moms (Amy Kalafa, Susan Rubin)
• Using Diversity (Deccan Development Society)
• The Waterfront (Liz Miller )

Adds Faye,  “Be sure to check out several film distribution companies whose collections include many more films about food issues.”

• Bullfrog Films
• Documentary Educational Resources
• First Run Icarus
• New Day Films
• Reframe
• Third World Newsreel
• Women Make Movies

- Paige Churchman