Posts Tagged ‘Joel Salatin’
Films Connect Food and the Environment
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010
Image: Environmental Film Festival in the Nation's Capital
The 18th Annual Environmental Film Festival in the Nation’s Capital will be held March 16-28 in Washington, DC and will feature 155 films. One of the main themes at the festival this year is the connection between food and the environment. 32 of the films will be part of the Food & Agriculture Film Series.
Topics include school food programs, the sustainable organic movement, biodiversity, the slow food movement, food security, migrant farm workers, and urban agriculture. Bonus: The majority of the films are free!
Below is a list of films that relate to our region.
If you haven’t seen Fresh, which features Virginia farmer Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms, you can watch it on March 17 at 7:30pm at the National Geographic Society. Following the screening, you can participate in a discussion featuring the filmmaker Ana Sofia Joanes, Ann Yonkers, Co-director of FRESHFARM Markets, and by phone, Joel Salatin.
Lunch is a short documentary co-presented by the Earth Day Network & Center for Environmental Filmmaking. The film takes a look at school lunch programs, particularly within the Baltimore, MD public school system. It will be shown with the film Potato Heads at American University with a discussion afterwards with the Potato Heads filmmaker and the Director, Avis Richards of Earth Day Network. The film can be seen on March 22 at 7pm and is free to the public.
NORA! A film about Nora Pouillon, DC’s pioneer in the organic and local-food movement and owner of the nation’s first certified organic restaurant. Following the film there will be a discussion with the star herself. The film can be seen for free on March 23 at 7pm and will be screened at the International Student House.
Who Killed Crassostrea Virginica: The Fall and Rise of Chesapeake Bay Oysters. A whodunit film about the decline of the Chesapeake Bay oyster population. Was it the watermen, the oyster farmers, or the scientists who study them? The film can be seen for free on March 21 at 1:30pm at the Carnegie Institution for Science and will be followed by a discussion with filmmaker Michael Fincham and oyster biologist Ken Paynter and Captain Ed Farley.
There will also be films on global water issues, including a film on the restoration of the Anacostia River in Washington, DC (The Meaningful Watershed Education Experience), and a fifteen minute excerpt on chemical contaminants within the Chesapeake Bay (Poisoned Waters: Chesapeake Bay).
For a complete list, visit the film festival 2010 Films page.
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010
The 82nd Academy Awards nominations were announced today. Five food-related films are contenders for the coveted Oscars in five different categories.
Image: Boston Grub Street
-The Cove for Documentary Feature
-Fantastic Mr. Fox for Animated Feature Film and Music, Original Score
-Food, Inc for Documentary Feature
-French Roast for Short Film
-Julie & Julia for Actress in a Leading Role (Meryl Streep as Julia Child)
The Cove (Official Selection at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival) exposes the true story behind the dolphin capture trade industry in Taiji, Japan, the mercury levels in dolphins, and how dolphin meat is deceptively sold as whale meat to Japanese school systems.
Fantastic Mr. Fox is the Wes Anderson adaptation of Roald Dahl’s novel. It is the story of Mr. Fox, a chicken thief turned responsible writer, who reverts back to his old ways and leads his neighbors into stealing from local farmers Boggis, Bunce, and Bean. Fantastic Mr. Fox is currently playing at University Mall Theaters in Fairfax, VA.
Food, Inc examines the way large corporations dominate the food industry and affect what consumers can afford and eat. The movie features Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms in Swoope, VA.
French Roast is the story of a businessman who discovers he has lost his wallet while drinking coffee in a Parisian café. The eight minute film can be viewed on below or on youtube.
Julie & Julia is the story of blogger Julie Powell’s 2002 goal to cook all the recipes found within Julia Child’s first book, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.” A replica of Julia’s kitchen plays a starring role in the film. To see the real kitchen that was donated by Julia to the Smithsonian in 2001, visit the National Museum of American History where it is on permanent display. Or take on Julie’s quest by tackling Julia’s recipes one week at a time.
Why not feed your brain by hosting an Oscars viewing party prior to the awards show, which airs Sunday, March 7 at 5p.m. Eastern on ABC.
–Aisha Salazar
Food, Inc. Aims to Feed Your Head
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009
The documentarian drumbeat against industrial eating complexes continues this summer with the upcoming release of Food, Inc.:
(Video: Magnolia Pictures)
NoVA locavores may have recognized Polyface Farm principal Joel Salatin spouting off in the above trailer, as the so-proclaimed “grass farmer” has been catapulted to the forefront of the sustainable agriculture movement following his near-messianic role in Michael Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.”
In Food, Inc., Salatin waxes philosophic about what elected officials SHOULD busy themselves with when it comes to our food supply:
Imagine what it would be if, as a national policy, the idea would be to have such nutritionally dense food that people actually felt better, had more energy and weren’t sick as much? Now, you see, that’s a noble goal!
Food Inc. is set to premiere locally Friday, June 19 at D.C.’s E Street Cinema and AMC Loews Shirlington 7.
Meanwhile, Food, Inc. co-producer and food journalist Eric Schlosser will most likely take a drubbing for his pinko dining habits on tonight’s Colbert Report.
-Warren
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Friday, April 17th, 2009
Most commercial villains aren’t daft enough to broadcast videos of themselves defiling the food supply:
(Video: YouTube)
The truth is, food tampering is often an invisible crime–at least until it becomes a national pandemic like our back-to-back salmonella scares.
And while almost everyone agrees that protecting what we eat should be a priority, the shape and scope of said safeguards are being hotly debated even as we speak courtesy of H.R. 875 – the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009.
Bill author Rep. Rose DeLauro (D-Conn.) maintains that her plan would:
“set up a farm-to-fork system for protecting foods … and changes the focus from catching violators to preventing disease-causing contamination.”
Pivotal changes to our current food production infrastructure would include the establishment of a new “Food Safety Administration”–to be run by a White House appointed “Administrator of Food Safety”–within the Department of Health and Human Services, and the adoption of a national traceability database designed to “retrieve the history, use and location of an article of food through all stages of its production, processing and distribution” (echoes of the Virginia Peanut Corporation crackdown, no doubt).
Meanwhile, DeLauro has been accused of demagoguery by some who smell a Patriot Act-sized rat rooting around in the farm registry and inspection provisions of the bill:
(Video: YouTube)
Of course, both DeLauro and Monsanto vehemently deny any wrong doing. And neither H.R. 875 nor its Senate companion S. 510 have cleared so much as a single committee yet.
But independent farmers aren’t going to sit idly by on the sidelines.
Sustainable agriculture supporters are planning to plead their case in person Tuesday, April 21, when they fan out across the Capitol for their “Farm Food Voices” lobbying blitz.
Deborah Stockton, executive director of the National Independent Consumers and Farmers Association, and Polyface Farms operator Joel Salatin are expected to host a reception that evening where locally sourced foods will be served, while the morning will be dedicated to bending solons’ ears and pressing the flesh with congressional aides.
Anxious to write yourself into this David v. Goliath storyline? Head downtown on Tuesday and investigate the issues for yourself.
Otherwise, sit back in silence and wait for the next batch of tainted food to be delivered to your door/favorite restaurant/neighborhood grocery.
–Warren Rojas
