Film Fest location: Britannia High School Auditorium (1661 Napier St, behind the community centre). Watch for directional signs.
The Stone Soup Film Festival responds to the enormous interest in food issues these days. Environmental concerns, globalization, economic collapse are alerting us to the fragility of our food system and the urgency of action. Although the realities surrounding our current land and food systems can be disheartening, our films aim to emphasize the positive efforts being made as a way to empower the current generation to take action.
In doing so, the Stone Soup Food Film Festival aims to broaden the community’s awareness and understanding of food issues, its problems and solutions by screening both locally and internationally films on a range of themes including health and nutrition, food economics, agricultural worker rights, sustainable agriculture, and urban gardening.
This year’s Stone Soup Film Festival is presented as part of the much loved Stone Soup Festival, a community food festival held on May 8th at the Britannia Community Centre, 1661 Napier St, just off Commercial Drive .
Tickets
$12 Festival Passes ~ available at Britannia Community Centre (1661 Napier St).
Tickets at the door ~ by donation (suggested $5 - $10) for each film slot
For more information contact Ian @ 604-718-5895
Film Fest location: Britannia High School Auditorium. There will be lots of direction signs.
Films and Film Schedule follows...
____________________________________________________
Saturday, May 8th
12:30 - 2pm
What's on Your Plate?
73min / 2009 / USA
Official Selection, Seattle International Film Festival, 2009
Official Selection, BAMcinemaFEST, 2009
What's on your Plate? is a witty and provocative documentary produced and directed by award-winning Catherine Gund about kids and food politics.
Filmed over the course of one year, the film follows two eleven-year-old multi-racial city kids as they explore their place in the food chain. Sadie and Safiyah take a close look at food systems in New York City and its surrounding areas. With the camera as their companion, the girl guides 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.
The girls address questions regarding the origin of the food they eat, how it’s cultivated, how many miles it travels from the harvest to their plate, how it’s prepared, who prepares it, and what is done afterwards with the packaging and leftovers. They visit the usual supermarkets, fast food chains, and school lunchrooms. But they also check into innovative sustainable food system practices by going to farms, greenmarkets, and community supported agriculture programs. They discover that these programs both help struggling farmers to survive on the one hand and provide affordable, locally-grown food to communities on the consumer end, especially to lower-income urban families. In WHAT’S ON YOUR PLATE?, the two friends formulate sophisticated and compassionate opinions on the state of their society, and by doing so inspire hope and active engagement in others.
"What's On Your Plate" is exactly the film we need now.
– Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto and The Omnivore's Dilemma
Congratulations, Sadie and Safiyah! It is great to have you take us through the food cycle. As somebody said: "You are what you eat." Thank you for helping us get it right. You will definitely capture the imagination of your peers and generations beyond.
– Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of the United Nations
It was an amazing experience to hear kids talking about these issues. This movie can have a real impact on the way we think about what we’re eating.
– Alice Waters, chef, author and founder of the Edible Schoolyard
This film is charming beyond belief and covers a lot of great stuff. Thanks for making it.
– Marion Nestle, author of Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health
Mr Okra
15 min / 2009 / USA
Winner (Documentary short audience award) Austen Film Festival 2009
Winner (Audience Choice award) NYC Food Film Festival 2009
Arthur J. Robinson a.k.a. “Mr. Okra,” is a man in a complicated world. In the age of fast food, strip malls, and mega-markets, Mr. Okra stands as a stark contrast to the high technology and shiny produce markets of the modern world. His is a world steeped in tradition, complicated by its diversity, but simple in its truth. His world is New Orleans. In a city known for its music and food…and its characters, Mr. Okra travels the back streets of the Bywater, Tremé and 9th ward, selling his vegetables from his iconic truck…one okra at a time.
"...a charming, smile-raising, 12-minute whimsy..."
- Mike Scott, The Times-Picayune
Guerilla Gardening: Can you Dig It
8 min / 2009 / Canada
Renowned urban gardeners speak about the philosophy of reclaiming public spaces and the community benefits of a movement that certainly promotes “being the change you want to see.”
____________________________________________________
2:30 – 4pm
Island on the Edge
70 min / 2007 / Canada
Trailer: http://www.dvcuisine.com/Productions/islandontheedge.html#
Produced and directed by Nick Versteeg of DV Cuisine, this documentary
features food producers and farmers of Vancouver Island and how they
struggle to provide a continuous, healthy food supply for Island
residents in the face of corporate agricultural conglomerates and a
population that seems to prefer cheaper, imported food.
"With the rise in popularity of the so-called '100-Mile Diet', we thought
it was time to show people how their local food is produced and the
challenges that exist on the island to giving more consumers access to
fresh, local ingredients," said Don Genova, food journalist in Cobble
Hill and writer of the documentary.
People's Grocery
9 min / 2009 / USA
In West Oakland, California, where liquor stores have replaced markets, People’s Grocery is creating a healthy alternative, offering access to organic produce. This documentary explores how, through urban gardens and local farms, the People's Grocery supports a culture based on connection to the land, sustainable agricultural practices, and
____________________________________________________
4:30 – 7pm
Milk
75 min / 2007 / USA
Awards : 2007 Chicago Underground Film Festival Best Documentary Feature
Milk in the Land navigates the complex social and economic history of industrial milk production in America, from early health reformers advocating milk as a replacement for breast-feeding, to milk fund scandals and underground bunkers of surplus milk powdered milk, to competing modes of milk production.
Whimsical and ethereal, Milk In The Land combines animation, collage and stop-motion cinematography alongside interviews with historians, milk bottle collectors, ethicists and activists in an engaging and informative look at our relationship with milk and the animals that produce it everyday.
Tlina: The Rendering of Wealth
51 min / 2008 / Canada
Best Documentary Short, American Indian Film Festival, San Fracisco
Best Cinematography, Yorkton International Film Festival 1999
Chalmers Award Nomination, Toronto 1999
"It's the anchor of our culture and society."
Stevie Beans, Mamalilikala First Nation
Each spring, families of the Kwakwaka'wakw Nation journey to a sacred place along the coast of British Columbia at Dzawadi, or Knight Inlet, to follow the age-old tradition of rendering the oil called T'Lina from the tiny eulachon fish. 'Namgis filmmaker Barb Cranmer's family has practiced this tradition for generations.
T'Lina was widely traded throughout the Pacific Northwest for thousands of years. It still serves as an important food staple, a trade good, and holds great importance in potlatches as a symbol of cultural wealth. In Kwakwaka'wakw society, the highest honour a Chief can perform is to give away, or potlatch, the T'Lina. In the T'Linagila ceremony, families dance with huge carved feast spoons and bowls, symbolizing the pouring of the oil. Hundreds of bottles of T'Lina are distributed to the guests who have come to witness at the potlatch.
Filmed on location over a three-week period in Dzawadi, families share a rarely seen way of life based on a strong sense of community. Important cultural activities are practiced, including stripping cedar bark for use in weaving, and a traditional method of making bread by the open fire. At the same time as they are re-visiting ancient ancestral village sites, the Kwakwaka'wakw people are taking steps to protect their sacred territories, and their traditional eulachon fishery, the source of T'Lina.
Told in the words of the Kwakwaka'wakw people, this film gives voice to the history of this dynamic coastal First Nation, as a document of living culture T'LINA: The Rendering of Wealth offers much to build upon for future generations.
____________________________________________________
7:30 – 9:30 pm
Dirt! The Movie
80 min / 2009 / USA
Winner (Best film for our future) Mendocino Film Festival 2009
Winner (Green documentary) Maui Film Festival 2009
Winner (best documentary) Visions Voices Environmental Film Festival 2009
Offical Selection, Sundance 2009
DIRT! The Movie--directed and produced by Bill Benenson and Gene Rosow--takes you inside the wonders of the soil. It tells the story of Earth's most valuable and underappreciated source of fertility--from its miraculous beginning to its crippling degradation. Made from the same elements as the stars, plants and animals, and us, "dirt is very much alive." Though, in modern industrial pursuits and clamor for both profit and natural resources, our human connection to and respect for soil has been disrupted. "Drought, climate change, even war are all directly related to the way we are treating dirt."
"An invigorating look at an invaluable substance we take for granted." --- Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times
A Thousand Suns
28 min / 2009 / Ethiopia - USA
A Thousand Suns tells the story of the Gamo Highlands of the African Rift Valley and the unique worldview held by the people of the region. This isolated area has remained remarkably intact both biologically and culturally. It is one of the most densely populated rural regions of Africa yet its people have been farming sustainably for 10,000 years. Shot in Ethiopia, New York and Kenya, the film explores the modern world's untenable sense of separation from and superiority over nature and how the interconnected worldview of the Gamo people is fundamental in achieving long-term sustainability, both in the region and beyond.
Millions Fed: Pathways to Prosperity
10 min / 2009 / USA
A short film about how scientists, policymakers, farmers, and ordinary people initiated a concerted push to boost agricultural production and productivity in developing countries
12:30 - 2pm
What's on Your Plate?
73min / 2009 / USA
Official Selection, Seattle International Film Festival, 2009
Official Selection, BAMcinemaFEST, 2009
What's on your Plate? is a witty and provocative documentary produced and directed by award-winning Catherine Gund about kids and food politics.
Filmed over the course of one year, the film follows two eleven-year-old multi-racial city kids as they explore their place in the food chain. Sadie and Safiyah take a close look at food systems in New York City and its surrounding areas. With the camera as their companion, the girl guides 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.
The girls address questions regarding the origin of the food they eat, how it’s cultivated, how many miles it travels from the harvest to their plate, how it’s prepared, who prepares it, and what is done afterwards with the packaging and leftovers. They visit the usual supermarkets, fast food chains, and school lunchrooms. But they also check into innovative sustainable food system practices by going to farms, greenmarkets, and community supported agriculture programs. They discover that these programs both help struggling farmers to survive on the one hand and provide affordable, locally-grown food to communities on the consumer end, especially to lower-income urban families. In WHAT’S ON YOUR PLATE?, the two friends formulate sophisticated and compassionate opinions on the state of their society, and by doing so inspire hope and active engagement in others.
"What's On Your Plate" is exactly the film we need now.
– Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto and The Omnivore's Dilemma
Congratulations, Sadie and Safiyah! It is great to have you take us through the food cycle. As somebody said: "You are what you eat." Thank you for helping us get it right. You will definitely capture the imagination of your peers and generations beyond.
– Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of the United Nations
It was an amazing experience to hear kids talking about these issues. This movie can have a real impact on the way we think about what we’re eating.
– Alice Waters, chef, author and founder of the Edible Schoolyard
This film is charming beyond belief and covers a lot of great stuff. Thanks for making it.
– Marion Nestle, author of Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health
Mr Okra
15 min / 2009 / USA
Winner (Documentary short audience award) Austen Film Festival 2009
Winner (Audience Choice award) NYC Food Film Festival 2009
Arthur J. Robinson a.k.a. “Mr. Okra,” is a man in a complicated world. In the age of fast food, strip malls, and mega-markets, Mr. Okra stands as a stark contrast to the high technology and shiny produce markets of the modern world. His is a world steeped in tradition, complicated by its diversity, but simple in its truth. His world is New Orleans. In a city known for its music and food…and its characters, Mr. Okra travels the back streets of the Bywater, Tremé and 9th ward, selling his vegetables from his iconic truck…one okra at a time.
"...a charming, smile-raising, 12-minute whimsy..."
- Mike Scott, The Times-Picayune
Guerilla Gardening: Can you Dig It
8 min / 2009 / Canada
Renowned urban gardeners speak about the philosophy of reclaiming public spaces and the community benefits of a movement that certainly promotes “being the change you want to see.”
____________________________________________________
2:30 – 4pm
Island on the Edge
70 min / 2007 / Canada
Trailer: http://www.dvcuisine.com/Productions/islandontheedge.html#
Produced and directed by Nick Versteeg of DV Cuisine, this documentary
features food producers and farmers of Vancouver Island and how they
struggle to provide a continuous, healthy food supply for Island
residents in the face of corporate agricultural conglomerates and a
population that seems to prefer cheaper, imported food.
"With the rise in popularity of the so-called '100-Mile Diet', we thought
it was time to show people how their local food is produced and the
challenges that exist on the island to giving more consumers access to
fresh, local ingredients," said Don Genova, food journalist in Cobble
Hill and writer of the documentary.
People's Grocery
9 min / 2009 / USA
In West Oakland, California, where liquor stores have replaced markets, People’s Grocery is creating a healthy alternative, offering access to organic produce. This documentary explores how, through urban gardens and local farms, the People's Grocery supports a culture based on connection to the land, sustainable agricultural practices, and
____________________________________________________
4:30 – 7pm
Milk
75 min / 2007 / USA
Awards : 2007 Chicago Underground Film Festival Best Documentary Feature
Milk in the Land navigates the complex social and economic history of industrial milk production in America, from early health reformers advocating milk as a replacement for breast-feeding, to milk fund scandals and underground bunkers of surplus milk powdered milk, to competing modes of milk production.
Whimsical and ethereal, Milk In The Land combines animation, collage and stop-motion cinematography alongside interviews with historians, milk bottle collectors, ethicists and activists in an engaging and informative look at our relationship with milk and the animals that produce it everyday.
Tlina: The Rendering of Wealth
51 min / 2008 / Canada
Best Documentary Short, American Indian Film Festival, San Fracisco
Best Cinematography, Yorkton International Film Festival 1999
Chalmers Award Nomination, Toronto 1999
"It's the anchor of our culture and society."
Stevie Beans, Mamalilikala First Nation
Each spring, families of the Kwakwaka'wakw Nation journey to a sacred place along the coast of British Columbia at Dzawadi, or Knight Inlet, to follow the age-old tradition of rendering the oil called T'Lina from the tiny eulachon fish. 'Namgis filmmaker Barb Cranmer's family has practiced this tradition for generations.
T'Lina was widely traded throughout the Pacific Northwest for thousands of years. It still serves as an important food staple, a trade good, and holds great importance in potlatches as a symbol of cultural wealth. In Kwakwaka'wakw society, the highest honour a Chief can perform is to give away, or potlatch, the T'Lina. In the T'Linagila ceremony, families dance with huge carved feast spoons and bowls, symbolizing the pouring of the oil. Hundreds of bottles of T'Lina are distributed to the guests who have come to witness at the potlatch.
Filmed on location over a three-week period in Dzawadi, families share a rarely seen way of life based on a strong sense of community. Important cultural activities are practiced, including stripping cedar bark for use in weaving, and a traditional method of making bread by the open fire. At the same time as they are re-visiting ancient ancestral village sites, the Kwakwaka'wakw people are taking steps to protect their sacred territories, and their traditional eulachon fishery, the source of T'Lina.
Told in the words of the Kwakwaka'wakw people, this film gives voice to the history of this dynamic coastal First Nation, as a document of living culture T'LINA: The Rendering of Wealth offers much to build upon for future generations.
____________________________________________________
7:30 – 9:30 pm
Dirt! The Movie
80 min / 2009 / USA
Winner (Best film for our future) Mendocino Film Festival 2009
Winner (Green documentary) Maui Film Festival 2009
Winner (best documentary) Visions Voices Environmental Film Festival 2009
Offical Selection, Sundance 2009
DIRT! The Movie--directed and produced by Bill Benenson and Gene Rosow--takes you inside the wonders of the soil. It tells the story of Earth's most valuable and underappreciated source of fertility--from its miraculous beginning to its crippling degradation. Made from the same elements as the stars, plants and animals, and us, "dirt is very much alive." Though, in modern industrial pursuits and clamor for both profit and natural resources, our human connection to and respect for soil has been disrupted. "Drought, climate change, even war are all directly related to the way we are treating dirt."
"An invigorating look at an invaluable substance we take for granted." --- Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times
A Thousand Suns
28 min / 2009 / Ethiopia - USA
A Thousand Suns tells the story of the Gamo Highlands of the African Rift Valley and the unique worldview held by the people of the region. This isolated area has remained remarkably intact both biologically and culturally. It is one of the most densely populated rural regions of Africa yet its people have been farming sustainably for 10,000 years. Shot in Ethiopia, New York and Kenya, the film explores the modern world's untenable sense of separation from and superiority over nature and how the interconnected worldview of the Gamo people is fundamental in achieving long-term sustainability, both in the region and beyond.
Millions Fed: Pathways to Prosperity
10 min / 2009 / USA
A short film about how scientists, policymakers, farmers, and ordinary people initiated a concerted push to boost agricultural production and productivity in developing countries
