Summer of 2010: Spreading the seeds further...

If you haven't seen it before - and especially if you have - I encourage you to sit back for a minute and have a good look at this movie trailer slash music video put together by PolyCultures director Tom Kondilas.  Achingly good song, and it may take a few views to fully soak in but the piece has a distinct narrative arc:

In certain ways spreading the message of that "seamless web" has been successful beyond any of our hopes.  PolyCultures premiered at the 33rd CIFF to a hometown crowd of 1000 and has been screened in dozens of states/countries (see the 2009 and 2010 lists to the right).  It was an Official Selection of both the largest environmental film fest and the most notable food equity annual conference.  Local PBS affiliate WVIZ aired it just before the national premiere of Food Inc. to commemorate Earth Day.  It's elicited appreciation from hundreds if not thousands of folks, many of whom were inspired to do a little more (or a lot more!) to create an all-around healthier food system.

I think it's easy enough to see why, when you watch this trailer and see the "problem > solution > action" theme of PolyCultures it highlights:

By the way, the glitchy music at the start there is intentional!  I composed it in early 2008 (and in fact will be performing related work at the upcoming Ingenuity Fest) and it turned out to be one of the many ways we found to artistically highlight the various themes in the editing and marketing phases.

Yet I feel like we could go so much further in making this work visible - and "we need to get it out to everybody," as Barbara puts it.

How many college/university libraries are out there that put have a couple copies of the DVD in circulation, giving many different types of courses an engaging teaching aid...?  How many public libraries could use their own copies to lend to community members who might be inspired to join a garden or host a CSA program...?  How many people in the city of Cleveland who have shoddy food access could use to see the poignant message that in many locations the food system is plain messed up...

...and to see efforts happening around them that could soon be reversing that trend (as shown in other parts of the movie)...?

I'm actively addressing those issues in my current positions at the Prevention Research Center for Healthy Neighborhoods and Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Food Policy Coalition. But I have a problem - there simply isn't enough energy to spread the seeds of PolyCultures much further. I only have so many work hours per week, and I feel I'm more valuable to both the Cleveland local food movement and the corresponding national movement by doing my work in those positions than I can be pushing this movie. I've learned that doing a film like this really is a labor of love, not a money-making proposition - so at this point it's not about trying to move units, it's about trying to impact more lives with what little time we can give it...

If I'm the food guy then Tom is the video guy, and he's sure keeping busy in his new studio in Garfield Heights - you can check his LESS Productions blog to learn more about what he's been up to this year.

We've largely gone our separate ways professionally, but one thing we'll always agree on is that we - and it seems everyone else who's seen PolyCultures - like the Harold Hartzler segment the best:

Simply put, we want more people to see that... and to see it in the full context. We want more people who see these clips or have caught a public screening to get a home-use copy and later lend it to friends... or maybe even think about setting up their own screening. I made the case for this last July and gave another comprehensive update on our progress with that in October. Since then it's been on PBS, sold a cluster of public-use copies, was reviewed in the Ethicurean, been screened over a dozen times across the country, etc.

But really, what could be more compelling than watching the first few minutes for free and deciding if you want to see the rest...?

If you've come this far but aren't ready to get your own home-use copy or learn more about acquiring about a public license, maybe you could leave us a comment below to let us know why...?

Gracias,
David

Two Big PolyCultures Screenings This Spring

After a long and somewhat trying winter, it seems PolyCultures is back on the scene.  

Wednesday April 21 at 8p PolyCultures is slated to play before Food Inc. on WVIZ PBS Cleveland!  Though some clips of the movie have been seen on television before this will be the official broadcast premiere of the latest 54-minute version of the movie (it's probably the best version:)!  

Here's WVIZ's link for that.

You can also hear Maurice Small on 90.3's Around Noon Tuesday April 20th, check this link for that.

Michael Carissimi and Tom Kondilas also worked on a new 30 second promo that will be aired on PBS for the week preceding the show.

Whole Foods is also sponsoring a theatrical screening as part of its Let's Retake Our Plates Film Series.  The 54-minute cut will play on April 30 at about ~7:00p for FREE at Lakewood Public Library - 15425 Detroit Avenue, Lakewood, OH.  Here's a Plain Dealer article about the series written by Kaye Spector.

Sprouting Through the Snow: A Batch of Mid-Winter Screenings

I recently experienced an absolutely fantastic festival: Wild & Scenic. It takes place each year in the former gold mining town of Nevada City, California - and it's become the largest environmental film fest in the US. So I had the chance to see over a dozen feature-length and short films about topics ranging from the pending world-wide shortage of fresh water, climbing stunning peaks in Namibia, and mushrooms.

I also had the opportunity to present PolyCultures in two historic venues...



...and give an interview that was streamed live and can be watched in its entirety here - about the movie and, more importantly, the movement in Northeast Ohio to provide impoverished neighborhoods with better food choices.

And all of this took place amid friendly folks strolling through the town from one venue to another, stopping here and there at unique restaurants and quaint gift shops. Doesn't get much better than Wild & Scenic!

While out in California, we received word that PolyCultures is an Official Selection of the Phangan Film Festival being held this February in Thailand. We're also part of the Frozen River Film Festival up in Minnesota, playing next weekend. On top of that, PolyCultures will be part of Case Western Reserve University Film Society's 6th Annual Local Filmmaker’s Night on Saturday, February 6th - great to be doing more with Tom's and my alma mater.

So, while we semi-hibernate on the distribution this winter, it's great to see that there's still interest in the documentary near and far. We have some big plans in the works for a spring-time relaunch... to coincide with the new growing season, of course.

Dec. 10th screening at Rocky River Nature Center -- UPDATE!! Big River added to the bill

That's a pic I snapped just outside the Rocky River Nature Center while attending their FREE four-part Bringing Nature Home Food Film Fest in October, where we shared trailers from PolyCultures and participated in after-film discussions. The festival has been extended to include PolyCultures on Thursday, December 10th from 7-9 PM!

Also, If you've seen PolyCultures, chances are you've seen or at least heard about King Corn. A couple months ago I had the good fortune to bump into and then chat with one of the filmmakers behind King Corn. This has led to the dual bill of their new project Big River alongside the freshly-released PBS cut of PolyCultures!

Rocky River Nature Center is located at 24000 Valley Parkway, between Cedar Point Road and Shepard Lane in North Olmsted. For more information, call 440-734-6660.

PolyCultures Tremont Screening Hosted By Tremont Farmers Market @ Pilgrim Church

NEO Premiere of v1.2 @ 17:00 2009-10-23 @ CSU: The Social Media & Sustainability Conversations

Why I Care About Social Media
As you may or may not be aware, the promotion and distribution of PolyCultures has thus far been executed with virtually no budget. The modest success we've experienced thus far has been largely affected through the use of social media (and of course the serious and virtually unpaid efforts of Tom and myself, Brad, and countless others). Specifically, we've employed: this blog, our LocalFoodCleveland group, our Facebook group, our email mailing list (are you on it? Contact Us if not), several trailers and clips on YouTube, LinkedIn profiles (as you'll see littered - er, linked throughout this post) and of course Tom's Twitter feed.

This process has sparked in me a serious interest in the use of social media to advance sustainability and civic efforts - reaching far beyond just our little local food movie. It also led to me having some very interesting conversations with Mike Gesing, an internet consultant and founder of the Northeast Ohio Citizens League. The mission of the NEOCL is to create a new regional civic space, empowering citizens to reinvent Northeast Ohio by educating and engaging them in the community decision-making process. A big piece of that is creating original video to share ideas on what is happening in NEO and what could be.


Bioneers Cleveland / River's Edge / Levin College Forum present PolyCultures v1.2

So I thought I'd unite a bunch of interests and opportunities by assembling a panel at a screening who can connect PolyCultures, social media, and the NEOCL through a conversation I can help lead.

Bioneers Cleveland will present the screening (official flyer), which will take place in Dively Auditorium at CSU's Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs (1717 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, OH, 44115) this Friday, October 23rd at 5pm. It will be co-sponsored by the Levin College Forum and River's Edge. It's FREE. (Donations to Bioneers will be happily accepted.) We'll be premiering a 56-minute cut of PolyCultures (v1.2.0) that we recently assembled for PBS audiences (see post directly below for more info). Except I'll be showing that cut in two parts....

v1.2.2 plus George Nemeth & Marianne Eppig
The first ~27-minute screening is about the problems with conventional agriculture, ecological agriculture as an alternative to that, and a look at how that alternative is being brought to scale. Following this screening I'll lead a discussion between:

Marianne Eppig
&
George Nemeth

George and Marianne are both professional experts in the use of social media to communicate about civic and sustainability issues. I think they'll help the audience get a solid grounding in what we mean by the term "social media," and that can help us get into how it can be used for the betterment of urban NEO - both in terms of scaling sustainability in general as well as PolyCultures in specific.

v1.2.1 plus David DuBois & Marc Canter
Then we'll watch the other ~27-minute cut, which is about food access issues in low-income areas and solutions to that, such as City Fresh and urban gardening. Following this screening I'll lead a discussion between:

Marc Canter
&
David DuBois

Marc and David are both in the process of applying their vast skillsets to the design of social programs that aim to improve the lives of low-income, underprivileged individuals through job creation/training. I'd like to get their thoughts on how PolyCultures, online social networks, and other social media can be used to help achieve that end.

The Team on the Fringes
NEOCL will be on hand to document the event with video - and hopefully we'll hear a bit from the Executive Director Mike about his role in the pending launch of NEOhio.org as a "virtual commons" for the region.

We'll be honored to have the Executive Producer of PolyCultures, Brad Masi - inarguably a pioneer in the use of social media to communicate messages of sustainability and civic participation - on hand to help introduce the movie and the discussion.

Plus, the Director Tom Kondilas and I have hatched/hashed plans for me to pre-record a discussion between him and Jody Lathwell, the manager of the Tremont Farmers Market who is bringing a simultaneous PolyCultures premiere of v1.2 to Pilgrim Church. If this happens and I/we have time to edit it into a good piece, we'll have to figure out where in the program to fit it... by default let's say at the start. So that could be a pretty sweet component as well.

Connecting two faith-sponsored screenings of this new version in a Mollison/Holmgren-like way that incorporates live media with social networking - and taking a new stab at good food education in the process. In the words of Benny in Basquiat, "What more you want?"

Your Role
I really think you should join us if you can - did I mention it's FREE?! And please come prepared to participate....

After all, this whole thing ultimately comes down to the citizens.

Mega-Update!!

As you've likely noticed, TK and I have recently produced a flurry of blog content. What we haven't done for a while though is give a comprehensive update on this whole project - not since I posted The Résumé back in July! So here goes...


New Product Line - Version 1.2
We recently produced a 53:30 version of PolyCultures in hopes of being included in PBS' Independent Lens series. We're inserting 2:30 of "value added" on the edges and calling it the 56-minute cut (i.e. the length it'll be if/when it airs). This cut obviously does not have the depth of its 100-minute predecessor (v1.1), but the core messages are retained and the flow is much better - it's much more enjoyable, if I do say so myself ;-)

In the process we kicked out two other cuts that are each about 27 minutes long. The first is about urban food access issues and solutions to that, such as City Fresh and urban gardening. The second is about the problems with conventional agriculture, ecological agriculture as an alternative to that, and a look at how that alternative is being brought to scale. We think these cuts are great as an introduction to either subject and should fit well within a single class period for high schools or colleges. By the way, the movie is already being used in curriculum by such fine area schools as Case Western Reserve University, Gilmore Academy, and Padua Franciscan High School.

At present we have just home-burned DVDs of these new cuts, but we're happy to make any of them available to parties who wish to purchase a public screening license.


Public Screenings
Speaking of screenings, we've had quite a few of them recently. In fact, in the months of August, September, and October we will have had 13 screenings that were presented by Tom, Brad, and/or myself in such locations as: Des Moines, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Athens, Youngstown, Oberlin, and of course several neighborhoods around Cleveland. In addition, there have been invite-only screenings in Chicago and San Diego - the latter was at a sustainable seafood restaurant called Sea Rocket Bistro, and here are a couple pics from the event:



Check out the "Recent Screenings" section to the right for details on each of these events. And definitely check out the "Upcoming Screenings" to the right for our upcoming screenings in Cleveland and California!


Food & Environmental Film Festivals
It was an honor to be a part of the film festival at what must be the nation's largest sustainable food conference in Des Moines (see my three-part series below). And it's going to be an honor to be a part of the nation's largest environmental film festival - PolyCultures has been chosen as an official selection for the 8th Annual Wild and Scenic Environmental Film Festival being held in Nevada City, CA on January 15-17, 2010! I'm hoping to be able to attend that one as well... looks like a great festival.

PolyCultures was an Official Web Selection of the 2009 Blue Planet Film Fest and recently received a 2009 Accolade Film Award.

Also, there's a great food film series going on Tuesdays this month at the Rocky River Nature Center, including The Future of Food, Fresh, King Corn, and Super Size Me. Tom and I have been going out to see these (again), sell PolyCultures DVDs, and show our trailers in promotion of our upcoming December screening at the Nature Center.


Addressing Food Gaps in Urban Areas
Tom and I both live in the heart of urban Cleveland and know how difficult it is to get fresh, healthy food nearby. We recently shot some footage of an area grocery store that was abandoned, resulting in a food vacuum in that community. We've incorporated this new footage into a new 5-minute piece on food deserts.

This coincides with a presentation we recently gave to the Cleveland Cuyahoga County Food Policy Coalition, in conjunction with Jenita McGowan's presentation of her related research in urban neighborhoods.

It seems from several recent comments on our About the Movie page that people are really digging City Fresh as a solution in underserved neighborhoods.

Along these lines, here's an insightful essay on the topic of urban farms that happens to mention PolyCultures, recently written by Marianne Eppig for her fine blog Renovating the Rust Belt.


Randomness
Here's a little treat for making it to the end of this post. I found this bizarro site while fishing for PolyCultures stuff. My favorites include "polycultures food where we live: you will not seem the show of reasons that wonder like word tried that church for potential" and "Polycultures food where we live: enrique vergara, the responsibility of the american santo works, drew to happen by road phone blue demon a art of his own." As well, I learned that "Polycultures food where we live: there are other placing prizes in the 56k." Can't argue with that reasoning.