Southern Circuit "Ripe for Change" Tour Day 8 Watkinsville,GA

FARMERS AND CATTLEMAN ATTEND WATKINSVILLE, GA SCREENING

LOCAL WIC PROGRAM STAFF SAYS “RIPE FOR CHANGE” SHOULD BE AVAILABLE TO ALL WIC CENTERS IN US

Rusty Haygood and Peggy Holcomb of the Oconee County Economic Development Agency brought out a diverse audience of farmers, ranchers and community residents to the screening in Watkinsville, Georgia. Several members from the staff of the local Women and Children Food Aid and Education program also joined us for the screening.

On this film tour I have screened “Ripe for Change” at museums with “state of the art” theaters, a former elementary school and now North Oconee High School. This almost brand new high school facility is in Oconee County. I was informed that the Oconee School District is rated as the best school districts in Georgia.

Once a major farming and chicken growing community, Watkinsville is situated an hour and fifteen minutes North of Atlanta. The community is growing rapidly with new residents looking for better schools and a rural environment. Most of the new residents are not involved in farming but commute to white-collar jobs in Atlanta, Athens and other urban cities in Northern Georgia. Like most Americans who commute they are concerned about the rising price of gasoline and the quality of life for themselves, their children and their neighbors.

Oconee County is now an affluent rural community where ranchers grow grass fed beef, and along with local farmers, market their goods directly to consumers at the Saturday farmer's market in Watkinsville. Russ and Joan Page raise grass fed beef and helped start the local farmer's market.

In addition to the standard questions about the challenges of growing fresh and healthy foods locally the discussion turned in a slightly different direction when one of the staff members from the local WIC program stood up and said how she and her colleagues thought the film could be very useful to further educate WIC staff members locally and across the nation. If you don't know about the WIC program it is the "Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children. WIC was created to safeguard the health of low-income women, infants, & children up to age 5 who are at nutritional risk by providing nutritious foods to supplement diets, information on healthy eating, and referrals to health care."

In addition to the film being used as part of a continuing education program for WIC staff across the US, we discussed the idea of creating video modules from "Ripe for Change," possibly including material that Emiko Omori and I shot that is not in the film. The WIC program meets for 15 minutes at a time with it's clients. The WIC staffers though serializing the video modules (6-12 minutes in length) would allow them o use it most effectively. This is something we have discussed but have not had the funding to do yet. If we could put "Ripe for Change" and custom edited video modules in the hands of WIC staff across the country, with training on how to use the film, we could help make a substantial impact on the health of low income women and children. This is one of the goals we had in mind when we made this film.

I stayed at the artistically restored and decorated Ashford Manor Bed and Breakfast in Watkinsville. The room I choose was the "Asian" room. It was decorated with incredible museum quality, traditional Japanese kimonos, artifacts from Japan and China and other elements from the far East. The owners Dave and Jim have created a movie set type experience in the middle of Georgia. I was blown away when I met their colleagues, Mario and Laura, brother and sister from Comfort, Texas. Comfort is only a half hour drive from Blanco where my wife Tina and I raised Angus/Holstein cross bred cattle on grass and oats from our organic 30 acre field. Amazing to meet folks from the Hill Country of Texas in Georgia.

Southern Circuit "Ripe for Change" Tour Day 7 Lexington, KY

LEXINGTON FILMMAKERS TURN OUT FOR SCREENING

LexArts, the sponsoring organization for the September 22nd screening in Lexington, Kentucky brought out a group of local filmmakers to see the film. This was the first time on the Southern Circuit where members of the independent film community had come out in mass. The discussion after the screening focused more on issues related to why Emiko and I made the film rather than on the issues it raises.

After the screening and discussion, Nathan Zamarron of LexArts and six members of the Central Kentucky Cinema Society asked me to join them at a local restaurant to talk more about the challenges and the joys of making independent films. While the Cinema Society is focused more on narrative filmmaking than documentaries we talked late into the evening.

After six consecutive screenings and discussions, I really enjoyed this break from talking about “Ripe for Change” and agriculture, sustainability and the foods we eat to share ideas and libations with other filmmakers.

Southern Circuit "Ripe for Change" Tour Day 6 Ashland, KY

FALL IN APPALACHIA, AND DIETITIANS CHOOSE
"RIPE FOR CHANGE" TO EDUCATE THEIR PEERS AND THEIR CLIENTS.

Driving through the mountains from Paducah to Ashland, Kentucky the trees were changing from green to shades of red, yellow and orange. In another week or so they all be that color. I have not taken the Blue Grass trail before. I noticed there was no litter and a very smooth highway as I passed through small towns made the driving a pleasure.

I knew "Ripe for Change" was playing at the Paramount Arts Center in Ashland but I did not realize that it was one of the classic art deco theaters that Paramount Studios built in the thirties. It was built for the "Talkies" and has been carefully restored to its former glory.

Kathy Timmons Setterman, the Paramount Arts Center's executive director, gave me a tour of this wonderful facility, which today serves primarily as a performing arts center. The community organization that owns and operates the Paramount bought a building behind the theater and remodeled it for dressing rooms for the touring companies.

I was very pleased to hear that "Ripe for Change" is the first independent film ever to be screened at the Paramount, and only the second film to play since the theater was restored.

Kathy and her colleague Tyson Compton (who took the photos for this blog) turned out locals interested in food and agriculture from three states: Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia. Most of the crowd was my age, which led to a 40-minute discussion about local agriculture practices. While folks were lamenting the lack of local agriculture, conventional or organic, a gentleman from a newly form grass roots "localvore" organization asked everyone to join them at their weekly meetings at the First Christian Church. No one in the audience had ever heard of the group but they wanted to learn more. This is what film screenings and discussions can do...connecting people to resources in their own community that they may not about.

This wasn't the only connection that was made at this screening. After the Q & A, a young woman named Brooke Baker walked up to me and said she was a professional dietitian. She had heard about the film when it was screened at the national convention of the American Dietetic Association in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia screening came about because Melinda Hemmelgarn, M.S., R.D. Writer, Speaker, Columnist, Change Agent and 2004-2006 Kellogg Food and Society Policy Fellow had seen the film at the International Food Security Coalition's national conference in Vancouver Canada in 2006. Brooke purchased a DVD of "Ripe for Change" to show at the West Virginia Dietetic Association. She is also affiliated with the West Virginia University Extension Service. I told her that the kind of screenings and discussions she is proposing is the reason Emiko Omori and I made the film.

Southern Circuit "Ripe for Change" Tour Day 5 Paducah, KY

The Southern Circuit Independent Film Tour is giving me a chance to see parts of the United States that I have not visited in years or in some cases have never been. Paducah Kentucky is one of those places. I had no idea what vibrant arts community exists in this historic town on the banks of the Ohio river.

Harvey Sadrow, director of the Paducah School of the Arts showed me around the arts district where dozens of artists, working in different mediums have moved from across the US. Painters, sculptors and others have restored the old historic buildings around the arts district and have built studios and galleries there. At one time the city offered these grand old buildings to artists for a $1. if they committed to move to Paducah and restore them.

Harvey is building the School of the Arts from the ground up but what a palette he has to work with. An old pickle factory is being converted to a building for sculptors. Another will be a film and video production school and center. The town itself and the Chamber of Commerce are helping to drive this arts imitative.

The "Ripe for Change" screening and discussion were held at the Clemens Fine Arts Center at Western Kentucky Community Technical College which the Paducah School of the Arts is partnering with. The projection and sound of the film were great. It is so wonderful that technical improvements in high resolution digital projection is allowing independent filmmakers to present their video productions almost equal with major motion pictures.

We had a great audience for the screening because of the tenacious promotion by Gail Robinson-Butler, director of the Clemens Fine Arts Center. Gail arranged for three radio interviews with me as the film's producer. I wish the film's director Emiko Omori could have been on hand to hear the applause from the audience after the screening. Actually "Ripe for Change" has gotten an incredible response at each of the first four screenings on the Southern Circuit. I next head across the state to the Paramount Arts Center in Ashland, KY. Ashland is in the Eastern part of the state where Ohio, West Virginia and Kentucky come together.

Southern Circuit "Ripe for Change" Tour Day 4 Lake Charles, LA

I have not stopped long enough on this whirlwind Ripe for Change film tour of the South to blog on our last two screenings. The first was at the Arts and Humanities Council of Southwest Louisiana is in Lake Charles. The last time I was in Lake Charles was on my honeymoon in 1966 with my first wife, and still good friend, Susan K. When I told the audience this I got a big laugh. I had been traveling the south throughout my childhood with my mother Mary who worked for thirty radio stations in large and small cities. I guess I was raised on the road because my sisters and I traveled with her each summer.

The screening and discussion was in an old but beautiful former elementary school. The well worn steps up to the theater showed the marks of thousands of school kids who climbed these steps daily. Now this great old building is the home of the Arts and Humanities Council of Southwest Louisiana. It also houses a Mardi Gras museum filled with colorful costumes of bygone eras.

The folks that attended this screening represented a cross section of the south, Anglos and African Americans. Unfortunately we did not have any representatives of the Latino and Asian immigrants who have migrated in recently.

I was just amazed that so many of the people in the audience had left their flooded homes and businesses to attend this screening. One was the president of the Arts and Humanities Council of Southwest Louisiana whose ranch had been spared by Katrina and Rita only to be flooded by the storm surge from Hurricane Ike. A local chef who graduated from the California Culinary Academy a few years before my wife Tina was there too. He and his family had been cleaning up again after their restaurant was flooded by Katrina, Rita and now Ike.I am amazed by how resilient the folks are that live along the Gulf coast. It meant so much to me that they would pause their difficult clean up work to come to the screening and talk with us about agriculture, sustainability and the cuisines of Louisiana.

The discussion after the film focused on whether local farmers could raise a diversity of healthy foods to sustain their population if we break from our dependence on shipping most of our fruits and vegetables 1300-1500 miles. That is the average distance that most food travels before it reaches our local grocery stores. One person said where we will get our citrus, and another replied will we have great citrus from the southwest corner of the state. Some long term residents did not realize that citrus is grown locally.

Southern Circuit Independent Film Tour Day 3 Manship Theater

It was quite a drive six and half hours across Alabama and parts of Louisiana to make it to the Manship Theater screening at the Manship Theater. The countryside was beautiful especially as I got closer to the Gulf.

I was amazed that 107 people turned out for the screening, discussion and reception at one of most beautiful new theaters in the US. Executive Director Janie Oldfield and Paige Heurtin
Director of Finance and Operations explained to me over a dinner of crab cakes, rice and red beans and a margarita how the Shaw Center where the theater is had opened just before Katrina. Gustav and Ike did some damage to beautiful glass facade of the building and to the town itself.

That made it even more surprising that so many folks came out for the screening. We had local organic farmers, faculty and students from LSU's agriculture program and just plain citizens interested in agriculture, sustainbility and the foods we eat.

The reception that followed the screening and discussion featured fresh vegetables and other treats from Whole Foods. The picture posted with this blog was shot by Sharon Sharpe and features yours truly in black, Libby Quintana of Whole Foods, Janie Oldfield, the theater manager, Paige Heurtin and her husband Frederick Huertin who is a chef who teaches folks how to cook fresh and seasonal cuisine.

"Ripe for Change" Southern Circuit 2nd Blog

Last night's screening and discussion at the Jule Collins Smith Museum in Auburn, Alabama went very well. The museum and it's staff were wonderful especially Scott and Andrew.

One grad student who came to the screening asked if it was California's climate(s) that allowed peach farmer David Mas Masumoto, author of "epitaph for a peach" to grow such fine peaches like the Suncrest variety organically. He said that beetles were a real problem to peach growers in Alabama and they were forced to use pesticides. I asked him to send me an email and I would ask Mas to share his secrets of organic farming in the great central valley of California.

Ross McElwee's 1986 film "Sherman's March" started out as a documentary about General Sherman's march to the sea wiping out as much of the south as possible. Instead it became meditation on love after McElwee's traumatic breakup with a girl friend.

Unlike McElwee, who in the film, slept with all his old girlfriends along the path Sherman took to the sea (documenting it very well by the way), on the Southern Circuit Tour with "Ripe for Change" I am going to be eating my way to the sea. I end up on the outer islands near Brunswick, Ga on the 26th. Along my path I will be enjoying southern food and culture and writing about it in this blog.

Last night I had a tasty, fresh, local sample of the great foods grown in Alabama. In fact, what blew me away was the "Sand Mountain" warm tomato tart I had at the Ariccia Restaurant at the Hotel at Auburn University. It was unlike any other tomato tart I have ever had. A whole tomato from the university's "Sand Mountain" agricultural research center was crowned by a slice of delicious goat chees and carmelized onions and sitting on a flaky crust (see attached photo). The dish by chef John Hamme won the 2007 Alabama State Dish Award and deserves the title. Chef Hamme was kind enough to explain his presentation of the dish. His staff, Billy Hankins and the server whose name I did not get were very helpful and cordial to me as a guest. Two great young bartenders, Lisa and Daniel took care of my libations serving me a perfect margarita straight up. In addition to the Sand Mountain agriculture facility, Daniel trned me on to the university's Lambert Meat Science Laboratory. I did not get a chance to visit any of the university's ag sites but I would have liked to find out more about their agriculture practices.


Onward to my six hour drive to tonight's screening at the Manship Theater in Baton Rouge. See you there.

"Ripe for Change" Southern Circuit 1st Blog

I am getting ready to depart from San Francisco/Berkeley on the Southern Circuit Independent Film Tour with "Ripe for Change" a film produced by myself and Emiko Omori, who also directed. The fourth episode in the award-winning "California and the American Dream" Series, "Ripe for Change" has had an incredible life in theaters, film festivals, conferences and community screenings around the world, winning five major awards in the process. I am very excited about being able to screen "Ripe for Change" and discuss the issues it raises, agriculture, sustainability and the foods we eat, with audiences from my part of the country.

While I am a Southerner, the last time I was in the deep south was in l969 when I drove back from Woodstock taking the "Southern route." At that time there were still bathrooms and water fountains marked with "whites only" signs in gas stations and public parks. Quite a contrast from the "three days of peace, love and music" I had just come from. Of course, most of the people at Woodstock were also Anglos. And being white myself meant that I was treated with good manners and great hospitality by my fellow southerners, both black and white.

"Ripe for Change," like the four other films in the "California and the American Dream" Series uses a "lens of diversity" to look at California as a microcosm of the United States. My colleagues Paul Espinosa, Lyn Goldfarb, Emiko Omori and used this "lens of diversity" in each of the four episodes in the Series . Emiko and I did this in "Ripe for Change" by identifying four farmers who are leading the movement to change from "mechanized" or industrial farming to smaller, specialized sustainable agriculture. Folks like peach farmer and author David Mas Masumoto whose wonderful books include "Epitaph for a Peach," "A Harvest of Memories" and "Letters to the Valley" have inspired many Americans to appreciate the importance of taste in our vegetables and fruits. Other stories feature Will Scott, the president of the African-American Farmers of California. Will and his family drive three hours each way every Saturday to deliver fresh, healthy food to the West Oakland's Farmer Market, an area that has more liquor stores than grocery stores.

Other stories revolve around farmers like Maria Inez Catalan, a migrant farm worker from Mexico who now owns her own organic farm and has a CSA that brings food boxes at reasonable prices to Latina women with children in San Francisco each week. Maria's tomatoes are so prized that the acclaimed Oliveta's Restuarant on the Berkeley/Oakland border serve them with pride. And we also feature Paul Dolan, the fourth generation winemaker from Mendocino who took Fetzer, the sixth largest winery in the US, organic then one step further to biodynamic farming.

Each of these farmers are examples of the kinds of changes going on in the American food system. I will reveal more stories from "Ripe for Change" and my own experience raising vegetables, fruits and cattle as I blog and eat along my path across the southern part of our great country.

I would love to hear your stories of the first time you tasted a great peach or tomato. Tell me about the food that you love, that touches your soul and represents the values we share.

A Turn in the South

Southern Arts Federation welcomes Jed Riffe and his film "Ripe for Change" to the 2008-2009 Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers starting Tuesday, September 16 at the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art at Auburn University in Auburn, AL.

More about Jed Riffe, "Ripe for Change" and the tour schedule

Trailer for "Ripe for Change"

Audio interview with Jed Riffe

Rolling out the red carpet

Southern Arts Federation welcomes Mohammed Naqvi and his film "Shame" to the 2008-2009 Southern Circuit Tour of Independent filmmakers starting today in Jacksonville, Florida at the Florida Community College of Jacksonville.

More about Mohammed Naqvi, "Shame" and the tour schedule

Trailer for "Shame"

Audio interview with Mohammed Naqvi