Food Fight Blog

On November 7, 2011 at 8:00 PM EST a special live screening of Food Fight will take  place online at Constellation.TV This  screening will be hosted by Director Chris Taylor, will be a conversation and Q&A with audience members about the changing landscape of food politics and how individual choices resonate from the home to the community and to the planet.

When we walk into a supermarket, we assume that we have the widest possible choice of healthy foods. But in fact, over the course of the 20th century, our food system was co-opted by corporate forces whose interests do not lie in providing the public with fresh, healthy, sustainably-produced food. Fortunately for America, an alternative emerged from the counter-culture of California in the late 1960s and early 1970s, where a group of political anti-corporate protesters–led by Alice Waters–voiced their dissent by creating a food chain outside of the conventional system. The unintended result was the birth of a vital local-sustainable-organic food movement which has brought back taste and variety to our tables. FOOD FIGHT is a fascinating look at how American agricultural policy and food culture developed in the 20th century, and how the California food movement has created a counter-revolution against big agribusiness.

Tickets go on sale on October 24^th. Reserve your ticket at www.constellation.tv/foodfight

About Constellation:

Constellation is the first online theatrical Platform. Which  means we show films at specific showtimes online. Audience members can purchase tickets-just as they would at traditional movie theatres- to attend online showings of films. Constellation is interactive and social. Each screening is an event, at which audiences can chat together and participate in live conversations with VIP hosts (such as filmmakers, actors, or other notables associated with the films) and other audience members and  users can set their own show and host screening for their friends and contacts. Constellation officially launches November 2011 with hosted screenings of Beginners, Bombay Beach, Grey Grey Gardens, Border Radio and many other new and exciting films. Visit us at Www.constellation.tv.

I am happy to announce that FOOD FIGHT is screening in one of the coolest small towns in the Connecticut Shoreline area, Chester. The film will screen at the Norma Terris Theater on June 12th. Here is the press release:

FOOD FIGHT COMING TO CHESTER

Chester, CT (May 5th, 2011) The multi-award winning food documentary, FOOD FIGHT will screen at the Norma Terris Theater in Chester, CT on Sunday, June 12th 2011 at 1:30pm. The film will make its Connecticut premiere as a benefit screening for the Chester Sunday Market, which opens on June 5th at 10am.

FOOD FIGHT is a fascinating look at how American agricultural policy and food culture developed in the 20th century, and how the local, organic, sustainable food movement has created a counter-revolution against big agribusiness. The film has screened in 35 film festivals as well as in theatrical and broadcast outlets all over the world since its release in 2010. The film features interviews with Michael Pollan, Alice Waters, Marion Nestle, Wolfgang Puck and 30 other chefs, farmers, food writers, and politicians who have focused their careers on fixing how food is grown in this country. The film won the prestigious Audience Award from the International Documentary Association.

The film will screen as a benefit for the Chester Sunday Market, which opens the week before on Sunday June 5th. The film’s director, Chris Taylor, will appear and lead a Q&A session after the screening. Local farmer Pauline Lord of Whitegate Farms and food activist and River Tavern chef Thomas Peterlik will also participate in the discussion panel. Tickets are $10 and can be bought at the Chester Sunday Market Host Tent on June 5th and June 12th and also at the Norma Terris Theater on June 12th. The theater is located at 33 Main St in Chester. More information about the film can be found at the film’s website: www.foodfightthedoc.com

The Chester Sunday Market runs from 10am to 1pm and features only Connecticut-grown agriculture, locally-produced food and regionally-made delights. Each week the market unites and engages the town by highlighting community organizations, local musicians and chefs, as well as vibrant Chester businesses. More information about the Market can be found at www.chestersundaymarket.com

Contact: Chris Taylor (kinophile@mac.com)

Here is a comment from a fellow filmmaker following our LA Premier at the Crest Theater:

What a great premiere!!! Congrats!!!
I was loving seeing how gorgeous the film
looked (and sounded) up there on that huge screen
last night!!! Whatever you shot it on combined
with the print or the whatever it was screening on
looked really really fabulous. I’m not just saying that.
The colors and the way people were shot really was
luscious and I enjoyed that so much on the big screen,
in addition to the awesome content of the movie, which of course I am already a fan of.

Alice Water’s purple shirt, the tangerines in the glass bowl next to Michael Polan, the way Polan was on camera left and Alice camera right, and all the Luques food making me drool and on and on luscious, luscious! The way Ron Kind was shot with his basketball, the moose heads in that
congressman’s office, all these lovely filmmaking choices along with all the great animation and all the excellent and varied characters and what you bring out of them to just enhance the powerful story and so important message. And then “the meat,” which to me is that graph of food prices dropping while crossing with the rise in health costs. LOVE IT ALL!!! : )

Filmmaking is such a rich and delicious medium and I love when great stories are told using the medium to the fullest as I feel “Food Fight” does.

But I forgot one thing… humor! I love that there is so much humor in “Food Fight.” Fun with a message inside!!!
That’s the ticket! : )

FOOD FIGHT will be having its Los Angeles Theatrical Debut at the Majestic Crest Theater in Westwood on Wednesday, March 24th, at 7:30 PM. In addition to the film screening, there will be a discussion panel afterwards featuring Russ Parsons from the LA Times, Evan Kleiman, chef and host of KCRW’s “Good Food” (and a local LA food rock star if there ever was one), director Chris Taylor, and organic farmer and food activist Thetis Sammons. Tickets are being sold in advance here.

We are screening as part of the “Something to Talk About” independent documentary film series that Brainstorm Media has created with support from Loyola Productions. Brainstorm head Meyer Schwartzstein has put together the program to engage Los Angeles audiences in constructive dialogues about how to positively change our society. Other film to follow in coming months include Revolution Green and House Quake.

FOOD FIGHT will be screening at Harvard, Amherst, and Cornell beginning Feb 16th. Please check the “Screenings” page for details.

FOOD FIGHT will be having its Theatrical Debut Wednesday, March 24th in Los Angeles as part of the “Something to Talk About” film series being held at the Crest Theatre in Westwood, CA. The film will screen at 7pm and a Q&A will be held after with Director Chris Taylor, LA Times Food Editor Russ Parsons, organic farmer Thetis Sammons, and one other food star to be named later this week. Further information to follow.

The good farmers and food lovers of Brainerd, Minnesota have invited us to screen FOOD FIGHT at the Franklin Art Center on Wednesday, January 20th. The screening will start at 6pm and be followed by a Q&A with farmer-activists Thetis Sammons and Joshua Anderson. Matt Annand of Prairie Bay will be bringing in food for a reception afterwards . The hosts for the event are our friends Alan Jabs, Crow Wing Co-op, and Farm of Plenty.

Happy New Year to all lovers of good healthy food and everyone who is motivated to fix our dysfunctional food system!

Our first screening event in the New Year will be at the Wild and Scenic Film Festival in Nevada City, CA–an incredibly beautiful town in Northeastern California. We will be screening at the Odd Fellows Hall on Saturday, January 16th at 8:30pm. Thetis Sammons and I will be there for a Q&A afterward.

There is good news for fans of FOOD FIGHT. We have won the “Best Documentary” Award at the Asheville Film Festival AND we have also won the “Audience Award” at the same festival. Those two awards are great honors for the film (and brings our Award total to 9 for the year).

And our first month of “theatrical screenings” in front of paying audiences has been a total success for us and for fans of healthy, nutritious, sustainable food. If you haven’t seen the film yet, we will most likely be coming to your town in the next 90 days.

FOOD FIGHT is also showing at JCCC’s Craig Auditorium in Overland Park, KS on Friday 11/13 – 3-6pm.

Here is the website for our hosts, the Kansas City Food Circle:

http://www.kcfoodcircle.org/calendar.php