By Adam Rabiner
Back in February the Plow to Plate film series tried something different. Rather than screening a single feature, we curated a selection of ten shorts - the 2016 winners of the international Real Food Films Contest, whose themes that year were Taking on Big Soda: Public Policies for Public Health, Building Power with Food Workers, and Tackling Climate Change through Food.
We did not know what to expect but the post screening report was positive. Viewers enjoyed the variety, selection, and brevity. As a result of the good feedback, we’ve brought back this format for our June screening. For this run, our talented curator, Sean Kaminsky, an award-winning filmmaker in his own right (Open Sesame – The Story of Seeds http://www.thestoryofseedsmovie.com) chose the theme: Food, Family & Farms: Growing the Next Generation, selecting eight related films from Real Food Films Media library, plus a TEDx Talk.
Eleven year-old Birke Baehr pretty much covers in his five minute Ted Talk, What’s Wrong with Our Food System?, every topic the Plow to Plate film series has in its 9 year history: packaging, marketing and advertising to children, the industrial food system, GMOs, CAFOs, pesticides, herbicides, irradiation, locavores and sustainable food, to name a few. Birke had once wanted to be an NFL football player but now wants to be an organic farmer like one of his heroes, Joel Salatin.
Greene Generation, which was a 2017 Read Food winner, fits perfectly with the chosen theme. Narrated by fourteen year old Nathanael Greene and featuring his ten year old younger brother Seth and his sixteen year old sister Hannah, as well as an assortment of pigs roaming wild, it’s the family’s testimony, as told by the children not the parents, about why they’re participants in the small, healthy food movement.
At Needle Point, the winner of the Grand Prize in 2015 for Best Student Film, is a poetry- slam about the deleterious effects a lifetime of drinking Pepsi has had on a 35 year old African-American woman. The spooky title points to what it is: a chilling, mini horror film, replete with creepy dolls and bloody bandages.
Food Forward Grocery List catalogs an experiment where friends shop from two grocery stores using the same shopping list. One goes to a Whole Foods on Rodeo Drive while the other visits Jon’s Market in a poor part of downtown L.A. Whole Foods smells fresh and offers abundant varieties, including organic and non GMO selections. Jon’s suffers from poor quality, lacks whole wheat bread, and features onions covered with flies. Whole Food’s receipt is $39.08 and Jon’s is $19.41. But the girls also learn you don’t need to be rich to eat well if you’re careful about what you buy and don’t go to McDonalds.
Hunger in America’s Heartland is a heartbreaking look into a low-income family’s circumstances with food insecurity where the choice is often between paying bills and eating well. The parents and three children must rely on food stamps, WIC, and a local food bank. No one in the household is starving and the family, getting by on minimum wage, tries its best, but it is not enough.
Feed Your Baby is an animated video by Brooklyn (and no doubt Park Slope Food Coop member) Jen Chapin and her husband and partner Stephan Crump, off her album, Reckoning. It’s a catchy song and beautifully illustrated, but its lyrics tell the sad story of a mother who can’t feed her baby any longer and is facing “starvation in the 21st century.” The chorus repeats:
worry worry work and cry
full warm breast goes limp and dry
wilted leaves still priced too high
too hard feed my baby
There’s another short called Home Girl about former women gang members offered a second chance through urban farming for the Home Girl Cafe in Los Angeles, whose motto is “jobs not jails.” The formerly incarcerated who work there have found new purpose, love, comfort, meaning, and a community that believes in them.
The last two films offer similarly optimistic takes on the theme. Real Food Rising features an urban farm and youth development program in Salt Lake City, Utah, that brings together teenagers from different backgrounds (ethnic, class, religious) to farm together growing, bagging, and delivering over five hundred pounds of produce for local food pantries.
And Compass Green Mobile Greenhouse describes a mobile education project, namely a greenhouse on a bus, that drives all over the country visiting schools, universities, and community events to teach people, mostly children, about agricultural sustainability.
These films may all be short, but whether telling a sad story, an educational one, or an inspiring one, they are all deep. Use them as launching points to begin your own journey of discovery.
Back in February the Plow to Plate film series tried something different. Rather than screening a single feature, we curated a selection of ten shorts - the 2016 winners of the international Real Food Films Contest, whose themes that year were Taking on Big Soda: Public Policies for Public Health, Building Power with Food Workers, and Tackling Climate Change through Food.
We did not know what to expect but the post screening report was positive. Viewers enjoyed the variety, selection, and brevity. As a result of the good feedback, we’ve brought back this format for our June screening. For this run, our talented curator, Sean Kaminsky, an award-winning filmmaker in his own right (Open Sesame – The Story of Seeds http://www.thestoryofseedsmovie.com) chose the theme: Food, Family & Farms: Growing the Next Generation, selecting eight related films from Real Food Films Media library, plus a TEDx Talk.
Eleven year-old Birke Baehr pretty much covers in his five minute Ted Talk, What’s Wrong with Our Food System?, every topic the Plow to Plate film series has in its 9 year history: packaging, marketing and advertising to children, the industrial food system, GMOs, CAFOs, pesticides, herbicides, irradiation, locavores and sustainable food, to name a few. Birke had once wanted to be an NFL football player but now wants to be an organic farmer like one of his heroes, Joel Salatin.
Greene Generation, which was a 2017 Read Food winner, fits perfectly with the chosen theme. Narrated by fourteen year old Nathanael Greene and featuring his ten year old younger brother Seth and his sixteen year old sister Hannah, as well as an assortment of pigs roaming wild, it’s the family’s testimony, as told by the children not the parents, about why they’re participants in the small, healthy food movement.
At Needle Point, the winner of the Grand Prize in 2015 for Best Student Film, is a poetry- slam about the deleterious effects a lifetime of drinking Pepsi has had on a 35 year old African-American woman. The spooky title points to what it is: a chilling, mini horror film, replete with creepy dolls and bloody bandages.
Food Forward Grocery List catalogs an experiment where friends shop from two grocery stores using the same shopping list. One goes to a Whole Foods on Rodeo Drive while the other visits Jon’s Market in a poor part of downtown L.A. Whole Foods smells fresh and offers abundant varieties, including organic and non GMO selections. Jon’s suffers from poor quality, lacks whole wheat bread, and features onions covered with flies. Whole Food’s receipt is $39.08 and Jon’s is $19.41. But the girls also learn you don’t need to be rich to eat well if you’re careful about what you buy and don’t go to McDonalds.
Hunger in America’s Heartland is a heartbreaking look into a low-income family’s circumstances with food insecurity where the choice is often between paying bills and eating well. The parents and three children must rely on food stamps, WIC, and a local food bank. No one in the household is starving and the family, getting by on minimum wage, tries its best, but it is not enough.
Feed Your Baby is an animated video by Brooklyn (and no doubt Park Slope Food Coop member) Jen Chapin and her husband and partner Stephan Crump, off her album, Reckoning. It’s a catchy song and beautifully illustrated, but its lyrics tell the sad story of a mother who can’t feed her baby any longer and is facing “starvation in the 21st century.” The chorus repeats:
worry worry work and cry
full warm breast goes limp and dry
wilted leaves still priced too high
too hard feed my baby
There’s another short called Home Girl about former women gang members offered a second chance through urban farming for the Home Girl Cafe in Los Angeles, whose motto is “jobs not jails.” The formerly incarcerated who work there have found new purpose, love, comfort, meaning, and a community that believes in them.
The last two films offer similarly optimistic takes on the theme. Real Food Rising features an urban farm and youth development program in Salt Lake City, Utah, that brings together teenagers from different backgrounds (ethnic, class, religious) to farm together growing, bagging, and delivering over five hundred pounds of produce for local food pantries.
And Compass Green Mobile Greenhouse describes a mobile education project, namely a greenhouse on a bus, that drives all over the country visiting schools, universities, and community events to teach people, mostly children, about agricultural sustainability.
These films may all be short, but whether telling a sad story, an educational one, or an inspiring one, they are all deep. Use them as launching points to begin your own journey of discovery.