John Beck - Vermilionville, Lafayette, and Alexandria

The latest update from John Beck, currently touring his film Harvest:

If you've never been, you gotta check out Vermilionville, the historical treasure in Lafayette that spotlights Acadian, Creole and Native American cultures in a hands on living historical museum (that's a photo of a hollowed out pirogue above).

On Monday night, only a few people came out for the screening of "Harvest" (Mondays are tough in any town and it turns out they'd just had a film festival over the weekend). But I was buoyed by a father who brought his two 4-year-old boys eager to see their first documentary.
I was so amazed they made it through the 70-min film that I started the Q&A by saying, "Everybody, I want you to give these little guys a hand. I didn't see a documentary until I was probably four times their age. You're looking at future filmmakers in the making."

Big thanks to Jesse Guidry and the staff at Vermilionville and Judith Meriwether at KRVS, who interviewed me before the screening. You can check out the KRVS interview here: http://krvs.org/post/apres-midi-november-18-john-becks-film-harvest

On Tuesday, I drove up to Alexandria for the final screening of "Harvest."

Instead of holing up in a chain hotel, I had the privilege of staying with local arts benefactors David and Nicole Holcombe who live in a beautiful house that has more art per square inch than any house I've ever entered. Check out a few of my favorite pieces, including an artist's portrait tying in Nicole's Belgian waffle heritage:

Big thanks to Matt Henry, Anna Brooks, Lod Hayes and the staff at the Coughlin Performing Arts Center who went all out for the event, even scoring a bottle of Foppiano petit syrah to raffle off after the film. Here are some great photos that Anna took:

Now that my Southern Circuit Tour has come to an end, I must confess that I have traveled with feature films all over this country (and one even played in France), but this is by far the most rewarding trip I've ever taken with a film. Hands down. No comparison.

To all the people I met in unique venues along the way - consider yourselves friends for life and thank you for coming out to see "Harvest." In the life of the low-budget documentary filmmaker, these journeys don't happen often and I will treasure every moment. Thank you!

And now I will leave you with my favorite photo from the tour (the photographer told us to make a "crazy face"):

John Beck - Hapeville and Lake Charles

The latest update from John Beck, currently touring his film Harvest:

 I went from one 1895 architectural treasure to another, going from the Madison Morgan Cultural Center to Hapeville's restored 19th century Christ Church Building.

Amid the hustle and bustle of Atlanta, with trains running through town, bordering highways and planes flying in and out of the airport only 5 min away, Hapeville is a tiny, easily overlooked treasure.

Big thanks to Allie O'Brien and the gang with the City of Hapeville who choreographed every detail from the top-hatted piano player to the wine and Volare appetizers reception.

My favorite comment came from Mayor Allan Hallman who described the tourist grape camp shown in the film as "It sounds like something a redneck would do, convincing those people to pay $2000 to pick grapes!"

I also enjoyed talking to a woman who had picked peaches in Georgia and perfectly related to the grape pickers in the film.

The next night, at McNeese State in Lake Charles. La, we were up against a football game the same night, but a devoted following still came out to see the film at the beautiful Shearman Arts Center - offering what was by far best projection & sound on this trip so far. It probably helps that Bill, the projectionist makes his own wine and beer (and even ferments satsumas & grapefruit!).

Banners series organizers Patricia Prudhomme and LaDonna McKnight ordered a case of the prize-winning Foppiano petite syrah for the reception.

I've been doing trivia wine giveaways during the Q&A's. One of the questions involves the burly black-bearded winemaker Paul Foppiano and his resemblance to former Giants pitcher Brian Wilson. The McNeese St. history professor who got it right let me on a little trivia of his own - Wilson played college ball nearby at LSU.

Tonight I'm screening in the living history museum at Vermilionville in Lafayette. Come on out ya'll!

John Beck: Madison

An update from John Beck, currently touring his film Harvest:

 When I told the crowd in Madison that their post-screening 5-station wine-and-cheese tasting was more extravagant than anything we've ever done when "Harvest" screened in Sonoma County, I think they thought I was joking.

Check out the killer tasting menu in Madison

Absolutely not - you think we had Peach Mead Gouda paired with Cline Cool Climate Pinot? Think again. We were lucky to get the wineries in the film to pour when it premiered at the Sonoma Film Festival.

Big thanks to Rebecca Bonas and the staff at the beautiful circa-1895 Madison Morgan Cultural Center, and to local wine purveyor Emily Garrison and cheesemonger Christel Green.

Surprise: Immigration (which is always lurking in the shadows in "Harvest") is a super hot-button topic in Georgia! We had healthy discussions both nights, but there was a moment during a post-screening one-on-one conversation where I briefly thought - what if they run me out of town tonight? where will I sleep?

Of course, I had nothing to worry about.

One of the highlights of the evening was meeting South Arts director Teresa Hollingsworth - she is the mastermind behind the Southern Circuit and, as far as I'm concerned, she's personally responsible for the most rewarding tour I've ever taken with any film.

And lastly, next time you're in Madison, don't miss the fried green tomato & bacon sandwich at the Chop House.

Looking forward to screening in a church tonight in Hapeville!

John Beck - Harvest Blog #2

An update from John Beck, currently touring his film Harvest:

(photo of me outside Movie Tavern)

We had an amazing screening in Suwanee last night. I think the Q&A lasted at least as long at the film.

Big thanks to Toni Shrewsbury and the gang with the City of Suwanee and the staff at the Movie Tavern for such warm hospitality.
(Did I mention you can order Kobe beef sliders and martinis by pushing a button on your seat at this theater?)

We had a great discussion about immigration and worker's rights and I even gave a few bottles of 2011 Foppiano sauvignon blanc (that's harvested in the film) to those who correctly answered trivia questions. One was a pregnant woman who promised not to uncork the bottle until after she gave birth.

My hat's off Adam Edge - the only person to ever notice that the grape grower in the film (Wayne Rogers) who loses 80 percent of his grapes to wild hogs - is sitting at a bar with a stuffed hog above his head in his final scene in the film. As a tribute to Adam, I stopped off at the Good Hope General Store and snapped this photo:

For Adam

I also took photos of cotton fields and thought about how in many ways cotton and grapes are similar - just as cotton was once king in this region, grapes are the dominant monoculture in Sonoma and Napa counties in Northern California.

When I rolled into Madison, the hotel clerk said, "It's a lot like Mayberry." The small town I live in - Benicia, in the San Francisco Bay Area - I like to call it "Mayberry by the Bay," so I feel right at home.

I'm looking forward to the screening at the Madison Morgan Cultural Center tonight. Come on out, I'd love to meet you. They're doing a tasting of Sonoma County wines afterward (6 reds and 6 whites) and local cheeses.

John Beck

An update from John Beck, who starts touring his film Harvest on the Southern Circuit this week:

I just landed in Atlanta last night and I have to admit I'm noticing a biggie-size theme already.

Hertz upgraded me to an SUV (note the selfie in front of the Chevy Tahoe). The Artmore in Midtown upgraded me to a two-story suite with full kitchen.

Is this what they call Southern hospitality?Toni Shrewsbury with the City of Suwanee has offered to take me out to dinner before the screening of my film "Harvest" tonight at the Movie Tavern and a family in Alexandrai, LA has insisted on putting me up while I'm screening there.

I grew up in Tallahassee, so it's not like I haven't spent time in the South before. But maybe I've been on the West Coast too long?

I know I've only been in the Eastern time zone for less than 24 hours, but this is nice - thanks everyone!

Looking forward to touring the Southern Circuit and kicking it off with tonight's first screening in Suwanee - see you there!

November Update - New Films and Filmmakers on the Southern Circuit

Happy November, friends! The weather is becoming crisp, leaves are changing colors, and we've got three new filmmakers on the Southern Circuit! Please join us in welcoming Vivienne Roumani (Out of Print), Jeremy Seifert (GMO OMG), and John Beck (Harvest).

---

Vivienne Roumani is an independent producer/director based in New York City. She brings to Out of Print a unique perspective gained as a director at the Library of Congress and the UC Berkeley Library, where she led digitization projects. Vivienne's previous documentary, The Last Jews of Libya, narrated by Isabella Rossellini, had its U.S. premiere at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival and was subsequently screened at major festivals and other venues around the world as well as on the Sundance channel.

Out of Print draws us into the topsy-turvy world of the revolution that is changing everything about the printed word – and changing us. We find ourselves in the midst of the riveting debate over the future of ideas when anyone can find out almost anything about any topic, anywhere, at lightning speed. Filmmaker Vivienne Roumani weaves order as she tackles the questions confronting the modern word industry and shows that much more is at stake than how quickly we can access the latest byte.

Schedule:
Nov 7 - City of Miramar, Miramar, FL
Nov 8 - Palace Theatre, Gallatin, TN
Nov 10 - Winder Cultural Arts Center, Winder, GA
Nov 12 - Morris Museum of Arts, Augusta, GA
Nov 14 - Wallace State Community College, Hanceville, AL
Nov 15 - Serenbe Institute for Art, Culture and the Environment, Chattahoochee, GA
Nov 17 - The Clifton Center, Louisville, KY

---

In 2010, Jeremy Seifert completed his debut film, DIVE!, Living off America’s Waste. Initially made with a $200 budget, a borrowed camera, and a lot of heart, DIVE! won 22 film festivals worldwide. In 2010 with the release of DIVE!, Jeremy began the production company, Compeller Pictures. He is now a filmmaker and activist, traveling the country and speaking on humanitarian and environmental issues. Jeremy’s second film, GMO OMG, tells the hidden story of the take over of our food supply by giant chemical companies, an agricultural crisis that has grown into a cultural crisis. He has once again found the heart of the project in his own journey and awakening. Jeremy and his wife, Jen, live in North Carolina with their three children, Finn (7), Scout (4), and Pearl (2).

GMO OMG director and concerned father Jeremy Seifert is in search of answers. How do GMOs affect our children, the health of our planet, and our freedom of choice? And perhaps the ultimate question, which Seifert tests himself: is it even possible to reject the food system currently in place, or have we lost something we can’t gain back? These and other questions take Seifert on a journey from his family’s table to Haiti, Paris, Norway, and the lobby of agra-giant Monsanto, from which he is unceremoniously ejected. Along the way we gain insight into a question that is of growing concern to citizens the world over: what's on your plate?

Schedule:
Nov 11 - East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN
Nov 12 - Western Carolina University, Cullowhee, NC
Nov 13 - Clemson University, Clemson, SC
Nov 14 - Presbyterian College, Clinton, SC
Nov 15 - Link Centre, Tupelo, MS
Nov 17 - Georgia College & State University, Milledgeville, GA
Nov 18 - The Arts Council, Gainesville, GA
Nov 19 - Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Arts, Auburn University, Auburn, AL
Nov 20 - Indie Memphis, Memphis, TN
Nov 21 - Haley Institute of Contemporary Art, Charleston, SC

---

Bay Area filmmaker and journalist, John Beck splits his time between directing and producing documentaries, shooting promotional video and writing freelance journalism. For the past 15 years, he has worked as a journalist in Sonoma County where Harvest is set among the vineyards. It was while on assignment to capture footage of a night harvest at Foppiano Vineyards in 2010 that he stumbled upon the behind-the-scenes drama and sacrifice that go into every bottle of wine. That's when he decided to follow all walks of life - rich, poor, winemaker, grape picker - through next year's harvest of 2011. It would turn out to be the worst harvest in Sonoma County in at least 50 years. His previous films, the feature-length Worst in Show, and shorts Stringers and Drag King, have won numerous film festival awards. His print stories have won national awards from the Society for Features Journalism and the Association of Sunday and Features Editors. Beck was born in Nashville, Tennessee and now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area

Shot entirely in Sonoma County, the feature-length documentary Harvest reveals the blood, sweat and tears that go into every bottle of wine. There is no swirling, no sniffing, no sipping or quaffing. This is all about back-breaking manual labor and night picks at 2 a.m. with only tiny headlamps. Over the course of three months during Harvest 2011, the film follows five family wineries - Robledo, Rafanelli, Foppiano, Harvest Moon and Robert Hunter. This is the story behind the wine you drink.

Schedule:
Nov 12 - The City of Suwanee, Suwanee, GA
Nov 13 - Madison-Morgan Cultural Center, Madison, GA
Nov 15 - City of Hapeville, Hapeville, GA
Nov 16 - Banners at McNeese, Lake Charles, LA
Nov 18 - Vermilionville Living History Museum, Lafayette, LA
Nov 19 - Arts Council of Central Louisiana, Alexandria, LA