Food for Thought Film Series
Food for Thought presents engaging and critically acclaimed films about food and its connection and importance to our community’s health. Films are shown in different venues throughout our region, offering maximum exposure within the San Diego community. Discussions about the local food movement follow. Our goal is to reach further into our community and engage citizens about local food issues.
Previous Showings
Food Stamped
Is it Possible to Eat Healthy on a Food Stamp Budget?
Tuesday, January 10, 7pm
World Beat Center
Balboa Park
2100 Park Blvd, 92101 (north of President's Way)
FREE!
Food Stamped is an informative and humorous documentary film following a couple as they attempt to eat a healthy, well-balanced diet on a food stamp budget. Through their adventures they consult with members of U.S. Congress, food justice organizations, nutrition experts, and people living on food stamps to take a deep look at America's broken food system.
Nutrition and public assistance are both hot topics in political debate — but what does it actually take to eat healthy on a food stamp budget? Is it even possible? Documentary filmmakers Shira and Yoav Potash decided to find out in the indie offering Food Stamped.
"When I started the film and experiment, I think I was pretty naive about the barriers that low-income Americans face, and I think that comes off in the film. I don't think I realized at the time how just how much privilege I have, how much privilege most Americans have in their access to healthy food, to be able to afford healthy food, and on top of that, having the time to even cook. I mean, it takes a lot of time, and when you have kids or when you're working two jobs, it becomes harder and harder."
Includes a discussion about the local food movement in our area and ways you can help support the return to locally grown, fresh and healthy food.
Dirt! The Movie
Wednesday, November 17, 7:00pm
International House Great Hall, UCSD
Dirt! The Movie is takes a humorous and substantial look into the history and current state of the glorious and unappreciated material beneath our feet. One teaspoon of dirt contains a billion organisms working in remarkable balance to maintain and sustain a series of complex, thriving communities that impact our daily lives. An eclectic group of participants ranging from biologists to prisoners incarcerated on Rikers Island offer answers to problems and inspire us to clean up the mess that we’ve created. Dirt! The Movie will make you want to get dirty.
Co-sponsored by:
Nicotine Bees
Honeybees are dying off worldwide. Now we know why.
Friday, September 10
Ramona Family Naturals
642 Main Street, Ramona, 92065
In 2005-2006, honeybees worldwide began dying simultaneously. Nicotine Bees gets to the truth about why the honeybees of the world are in big trouble, and why our food supply is in trouble with them. The answers are clear - and have been for several years. Filmed on 3 continents to find out the real reasons that bees are in catastrophic decline — and why many people don’t want the real story to be told — Nicotine Bees is ready to show what has happened.
The Beautiful Truth
Tuesday, June 29
Joyce Beers Community Center
After the tragic loss of his mother, 15-year Garrett embarked on a study of a controversial book written by Dr. Max Gerson over 50 years ago which shows that diet could, and did, cure cancer. Dr. Gerson’s daughter, Charlotte Gerson, and grandson, Howard Strauss, gave Garrett the ammunition to search for the truth – a truth that would affect not only him, but his entire Alaskan village. After a number of cancer patients, who were diagnosed as terminal, shared their stories and their medical records with Garrett, it became abundantly clear that, contrary to the disinformation campaign spearheaded by the multi-billion dollar medical and pharmaceutical industry, a cure for virtually all cancers and chronic diseases does exist – and has existed for over 80 years! Garrett’s mission now is to tell the world.
My Father's Garden
The Use and Misuse of Technology
on the American Farm
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Lestat’s Coffeehouse West Showroom
My Father’s Garden is an emotionally charged documentary about the use and misuse of technology on the American farm. In less than fifty years the face of agriculture has been utterly transformed by synthetic chemicals which have had a serious impact on the environment and on the health of farm families. This film tells the story of two farmers, different in all details, yet united by their common goal of producing healthy food. One of the farmers is the father of the filmmaker. Herbert Smith was a hero of his age: dedicated, innovative, a champion of the new miracle sprays of the ’50s. His fate is the heart of this film. The other, Fred Kirschenmann of North Dakota, is a hero for our age. Faced with a shattered economy and the devastating environmental effects of conventional chemical farming, Fred steered his land through the transition to organic farming. Twenty years later, the Kirschenmann farm is a thriving testament to ingenuity, hard work, and a reverent understanding of nature.
Fred proves that sustainable agriculture is a viable alternative on any sized farm and that we can bring health and beauty back to the Garden. Directed by Miranda Smith; Produced by Miranda Productions.
The Power of Community
How Cuba Survived Peak Oil
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Encinitas Public Library
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990, Cuba's economy went into a tailspin. With imports of oil cut by more than half – and food by 80 percent – people were desperate. This film tells of the hardships and struggles as well as the community and creativity of the Cuban people during this difficult time. Cubans share how they transitioned from a highly mechanized, industrial agricultural system to one using organic methods of farming and local, urban gardens. It is an unusual look into the Cuban culture during this economic crisis, which they call "The Special Period." The film opens with a short history of Peak Oil, a term for the time in our history when world oil production will reach its all-time peak and begin to decline forever. Cuba, the only country that has faced such a crisis – the massive reduction of fossil fuels – is an example of options and hope.
FLOW
An exploration of our food and water challenges
FOOD | WATER | MUSIC | ART | FILM
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
UCSD Price Center East Ballroom
FLOW - Irena Salina’s award-winning documentary investigation into what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century - The World Water Crisis.
Salina builds a case against the growing privatization of the world’s dwindling fresh water supply with an unflinching focus on politics, pollution, human rights, and the emergence of a domineering world water cartel.
Interviews with scientists and activists intelligently reveal the rapidly building crisis, at both the global and human scale, and the film introduces many of the governmental and corporate culprits behind the water grab, while begging the question ‘CAN ANYONE REALLY OWN WATER?’
Beyond identifying the problem, FLOW also gives viewers a look at the people and institutions providing practical solutions to the water crisis and those developing new technologies, which are fast becoming blueprints for a successful global and economic turnaround.
Part of the UCSD Water Awareness Month
Presented by: The Student Sustainability Collective, The Sustainable Food Project at UCSD, Aquaholics Anonymous, the San Diego Roots Sustainable Food Project, San Diego Coastkeeper, and the San Diego Food & Water Watch.
The Power of Community
How Cuba Survived Peak Oil
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Stone Brewing Co., Escondido
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990, Cuba's economy went into a tailspin. With imports of oil cut by more than half – and food by 80 percent – people were desperate. This film tells of the hardships and struggles as well as the community and creativity of the Cuban people during this difficult time. Cubans share how they transitioned from a highly mechanized, industrial agricultural system to one using organic methods of farming and local, urban gardens. It is an unusual look into the Cuban culture during this economic crisis, which they call "The Special Period." The film opens with a short history of Peak Oil, a term for the time in our history when world oil production will reach its all-time peak and begin to decline forever. Cuba, the only country that has faced such a crisis – the massive reduction of fossil fuels – is an example of options and hope.
STONE BREWING CO. hosted this event to raise funds for La Milpa Organica Farm’s new well. Over $650 was raised from donations and from a portion of food & beverage sales at the event toward helping diminish their dependency on piped-in water.
The World According to Monsanto
Saturday, August 22, 2009
The World According to Monsanto is an in-depth documentary that looks at the domination of the agricultural industry from one of the world’s most insidious and powerful companies.
This is one of the most powerful, must-see films for anyone interested in the behind the scenes world of the food industry, and how just one world-dominating corporation holds the keys and patents to much of the world's food supply.
2009 Academy Award-nominated documentary
THE GARDEN
a film by Scott Hamilton Kennedy
Saturday, May 2, 2009
San Diego City College Cafeteria
THE GARDEN is a moving documentary about the fourteen-acre community garden in South Central Los Angeles, the largest of its kind in the United States. Started as a form of healing after the devastating L.A. riots in 1992, the South Central Farmers created a miracle in one of the country’s most blighted neighborhoods. Growing their own food. Feeding their families. Creating a community. Then, bulldozers were poised to level their 14-acre oasis.
The Future of
Food
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
International House Great Hall
UCSD campus
Dinner provided by Global Gourmet, and the film showing was followd by a panel
discussion with agriculture & food experts
There is a revolution happening in the farm fields and on the dinner tables of America -- a revolution that is transforming the very nature of the food we eat.
The Future of Food offers an in-depth investigation into the disturbing truth behind the unlabeled, patented, genetically engineered foods that have quietly filled U.S. grocery store shelves for the past decade.
King Corn
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Serra Mesa/Kearny Mesa Library
King Corn is a feature documentary about two friends, one acre of corn, and the subsidized crop that drives our fast-food nation. With the help of friendly neighbors, genetically modified seeds, and powerful herbicides, they plant and grow a bumper crop of America’s most-productive, most-subsidized grain on one acre of Iowa soil.
But when they try to follow their pile of corn into the food system, what they find raises troubling questions about how we eat—and how we farm
The Real Dirt on Farmer John
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Joyce Beers Community Center, Hillcrest
The Real Dirt on Farmer John will turn every idea you’ve ever had about what it means to be an American farmer, or an American dreamer, on its head. Meet Farmer John, the incredible human being whose inspirational story of revolutionizing his family farm and redeeming his own life has won accolades and awards at film festivals around the world.
Food For Thought Film Series Partner
Click on images above to go to these organization's web sites.
Images and material © 2001-2011 copyright San Diego Roots Sustainable Food Project