News

Tuesday, June 30th

THE LATEST ON EATING ALASKA
RECENT REVIEWS OF EATING ALASKA
"A quirky look at our food system. Eating Alaska a delightful examination of food choices in America's frontier where traditional foodways sometimes but not always, gives way to supermarket junk food."
Marion Nestle
Professor, Nutrition, Food Studies, Public Health & Sociology, New York University.

"Through Frankenstein's lens, we find a much needed source of reassurance in these stubborn times, and see how clean and cultural and invaluable our food can be."
Phil Loring
The Fireweed
Go to The Fireweed to read the full review.


GETTING THE FILM TO MORE VIEWERS
EATING ALASKA is accepted by New Day Films
Illuminate. Challenge. Inspire.

New Day Films is a member-owned distribution cooperative offering award-winning, compelling social issue films to educational and community organizations. Democratically run by more than 100 filmmaker members, New Day delivers films that challenge and engage, bringing real people, their voices and struggles into the classroom.

Working with the coop will provide more opportunities to get this documentary to relevant audiences, be they campus groups focused on sustainability, high schools, public libraries, food coops or community groups.

Look for changes and links on this site.

UPCOMING SCREENINGS
• SIERRA CLUB, Miami Group (SW Ohio)
Monday July 6th 7:00 p.m.
At the Reading Rd. office of
Cincinnati State Technical College

• SITKA EATS:
Local food gatherers, food and a screening
Kettleson Memorial Library
July 16, 2009 Time TBA

• The Linda - WAMC's Performing Arts Studio
Co-presented by the Honest Weight Food Co-op and WAMC’s Documentary Film Series, Food For Thought is a monthly evening of food, film and discussion with a focus on films of social, political, environmental and community interest.
Thursday 7/16 7 PM $6
The Linda - WAMC’s Performing Arts Studio
339 Central Avenue, Albany, NY

• Appalachian Summer Festival
Appalachian State Museum
Boone, North Carolina as part of the Wild & Scenic Traveling Film Festival
July 10, 2009 8 PM

• Screening, Alaskan Pot luck,
and Salmon Smoking Class.
The Maxine & Jesse Whitney Museum.
Valdez, Alaska
August 12, 2009, starting at noon

• Screening and Local Foods Potluck
Wrangell Mountains Center
McCarthy, Alaska,
5:30 Potluck,
6:30 Film Screening followed by Discussion
The Wrangell Mountains Center is a private non-profit institute dedicated to environmental education, research, and the arts in Alaska's Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve.
August 21, 2009
Filmmaker attending!

• Rainforest Festival, Petersburg, AK
Thursday, Sept 10, 2009 7 PM
Filmmaker attending
Plus Sept 11th morning presentation at the school and an afternoon program at the library (details TBD)

More screenings are in the works from Gustavius and Anchorage, Alaska to Cuba.

Ellen Frankenstein, on 06.30.09 @ 18:21AKT [link]

Saturday, June 6th

Greener Business? Thinking Local on the Last Frontier
Can a film and speaker help foster conversation among businesses involved in the food supply chain?

Eating Alaska is a documentary about the complexities of what we eat, about choices, trying to eat locally and sustainably. Is one thing to be the "eater," or to grow beets, puts out a shrimp pot, raise goats and makes cheese for home use. It is another to be involved as a commercial buyer through distribution,transportation, packaging, inspection, processing and harvesting/growing.

Global Food Alaska:
Providing Transparency across Alaska's food supply chain.
June 10-11, 2009
Soldotna, Alaska
Ellen Frankenstein, Film Maker will screen the film at the Global Food Alaska conference and ask: How does what you saw apply to your concerns and realities, as part of the food industry? How and in what situations can we be sustainable, local and how does that translate to economic realities and profit?

Ellen Frankenstein, on 06.06.09 @ 10:39AKT [link]

Tuesday, May 26th

PAPER, PLASTIC OR?
Paper or plastic? Cloth bags made in China? How do you want to contain your groceries?
Producing paper is energy intensive and toxic. Plastic is dangerous to the oceans, our health and the rest of the planet. Cloth is good, yes, but was it made sustainably?

I'm writing in a quiet moment created because the ferry from Juneau with two people from a non-profit called Turning the Tides is late. They want to brainstorm about making a film focused on disposable plastics in the marine environment. They like the balance of humor and seriousness in Eating Alaska. As I think about plastics and organize more screenings of Eating Alaska, the complexities of our choices and the way we all consume and create a footprint, reverberate and ricochet.

Last week we showed Eating Alaska in Wrangell Alaska, a community of about 2000 people near the mouth of the Stikine River. The river starts in British Columbia, is noted for its prolific salmon runs, serving as migratory bird habitat, as well as being an ancient and historic trade route. We showed the first half of Eating Alaska and stopped both to put more on our plates from the local foods potluck and to talk. After almost two months on the East Coast, I was happy to eat wild salmon again and some herring eggs and venison too. I'd paused the film right after a scene about contaminants in the wild. What did we talk about? Well, what stood out I think for all of us, was the proposed mining for minerals and coal at the headwaters of the river and a recent visit from representatives of Talhltan Tribe to talk about what the mines mean to the health of the river, the fish and eating locally.

Meanwhile, screenings of the film and discussions of everything from what makes sense to eat, to making food maps to climate change continue.
This summer that includes:

• Mendocino Film Festival, Mendocino, CA,
May 31 2009 11 A.M. Matheson Performing Arts Center
Director attending.

• The 8th Annual UC, CSU, CCC Sustainability Conference
Share Innovative and Best Practices in Campus Sustainability for the University of California, California State University, and California Community College systems.
UCSB.
Monday June 22 9 PM
Anacapa Recreation Room, UC Santa Barbara

• Appalachian Summer Festival
Appalachian State Museum
Boone, North Carolina6
July 10, 2009 8 PM

• Screening, Alaskan Pot Luck,
and Salmon Smoking Class.
The Maxine & Jesse Whitney Museum.
Valdez, Alaska
August 12, 2009, starting at noon

• Screening and local Foods Potluck
Wrangell Mountains Center
McCarthy, Alaska,
The Wrangell Mountains Center is a private non-profit institute dedicated to environmental education, research, and the arts in Alaska's Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve.
August 21, 2009
Filmmaker attending!

An Ohio Chapter of the Sierra Club is organizing an Eating Alaska event too and more screenings are welcome, be it schools, community groups or families, Slow Fooders, campus sustainability groups, churches or anyone who wants to think about what they eat and how it connects them to where they live, with an Alaskan twist!

Ellen Frankenstein, on 05.26.09 @ 11:10AKT [link]

Sunday, May 3rd

The Eating Continues
Ethics, environmental impact, nutrition? There are a lot of issues when it comes to what we put into our mouths, explained Willow Blish, the organizer of the Slow Food in Boston screening of Eating Alaska.

I arrived at the screening just in time for a question and answer session and to the start of a panel including Willow, who has a background in fitness training that she's working to link to the way we eat, a young butcher/meat cutter and a local writer, named Andrew Rimus, co-author of Beef: The Untold Story of How Milk, Meat and Muscle Shaped the World.

Meanwhile, screenings continue with local food potlucks, bee keepers and farmers, salmon smoking classes and more:

• Redstone, Colorado
Final Winters Series Event, May 3, 2009 at 7 pm
Church at Redstone (966-6355)
Screening to be followed with local farmers, bee-keepers, grass fed local meat ranchers
and talk of starting a community garden.

• Lexington, Kentucky
May 6, 2009
6:30 pm Reception featuring local foods
Sponsored by Good Foods Co-op
7:00 p.m Screening & discussion with the filmmaker
Lexington Public Library, Main Street

• 2009 Alaska Dietetic Association Spring Conference
The Power of Nutrition in Alaska
Friday May 15, 2009
6:30-8:30 pm University of Alaska, Anchorage, Cuddy Center
Presented by Jennifer Johnson, nutritionist with the Anchorage Native Medical Center
and advisor to Eating Alaska.

• Wrangell, AK Community & School Screenings
May 18, 2009
Director attending.

• Mendocino Film Festival, Mendocino, CA,
May 29 -31 2009
Director attending.

• Appalachian Summer Festival
Appalachian State Museum
Boone, North Carolina
July 10, 2009 8 PM

• Screening, Alaskan Pot Luck, and Salmon Smoking Class.
The Maxine & Jesse Whitney Museum.
Valdez, Alaska
August 12, 2009, starting at noon

• Screening and local Foods Potluck
Wrangell Mountains Center
McCarthy, Alaska
The Wrangell Mountains Center is a private non-profit institute dedicated to environmental education, research, and the arts in Alaska's Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve.
August 21, 2009
Filmmaker attending!

Ellen Frankenstein, on 05.03.09 @ 06:57AKT [link]

Sunday, April 12th

From Musk Ox to Cornbread
Last week I (Eating Alaska's director), landed in Lexington, Kentucky as an artist in residence at the Living Arts & Science Center. It was disconcerting to make a big ol' carbon footprint and travel from a residency in White Mountain, Alaska, a village outside Nome, and from eating fresh crab to finding myself far from the ocean.

What helped to ground me? Finding a farmer's market, tasting some local goat cheese, seeing some hydrophonically grown tomatoes, and making connections with people asking the same questions. I discovered it is Green Month in Lex and found my way to a talk at a cafe, part of a Sustainability Lecture Series, called "Bringing Italy & Terra Madre (a world meeting of food communities a project conceived by Slow Food) Home to the Bluegrass." Jim Embry a local activist and teacher, among other things, shared his experience in Italy and asked questions about the way we eat and live, like why when we travel on U.S. highways is it so hard to find "good food?" To quote Jim, more directly, he writes in the local weekly, ACE, "In Kentucky, we don't have to wait until the food system melts down before we restore our sanity and health."

I do miss opening the freezer and pulling out a bag of beach asparagus and a salmon filete, but seeing what other people are doing to get access to good, clean, water and food and to live a little less destructively, isn't so bad.

In the meantime, Eating Alaska screened last week in Anchorage as part of National Public Health Week, in Nome at a science conference, in Ketchikan at the Discovery Center and at the high school and in New York City for a two weekend-long Food for Thought Film series.

Eating Alaska Screenings Coming Up:

• Food for Thought Film Festival, New York City
Saturday April 18, 2009 3:45 PM
Columbia Univ. Medical Center Alumni Auditorium
650 West 168th St.

• Homer, Alaska Community Screening
On Earth Day, April 22nd, 6:30pm
Homer Theatre
This showing is being hosted by the
Homer Farmers' Market and Fox River Cattlemen's Association.

• Copper Landing AK Community Screening
Thursday, April 2, 7pm
Cooper Landing School

• Slow Food Boston Eating Alaska Screening
Sunday, April 26, 2009 3:30 PM
Theodore Parker Church, West Roxbury

• Redstone, Colorado Final Winters Series Event
Sunday May 3, 2009 7 pm
Church at Redstone
Screening to be followed with local farmers, bee-keepers, grass fed local meat ranchers
and talk of our own community garden.

• Eating Alaska in Lexington, Kentucky
Presented byThe Living Arts & Science Center
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
6:30 pm Reception featuring local foods
Sponsored by Good Foods Co-op
7;00 p.m Screening & discussion with the filmmaker
Lexington Public Library, Main Street

• 2009 Alaska Dietetic Association Spring Conference: The Power of Nutrition in Alaska
Friday May 15, 2009
6:30-8:30 pm University of Alaska, Anchorage, Cuddy Center

• Wrangell, AK Community & School Screenings
May 18-19, 2009 Time & Place TBA
Filmmaker visits school and community

• Mendocino Film Festival, Mendocino, CA
May 29-31, 2009


Ellen Frankenstein, on 04.12.09 @ 06:49AKT [link]

Saturday, March 21st

Musk Ox and a White House Kitchen Garden
It is 9 A.M. The sky is a tinged orange, from the sun that recently came up. Out the window in White Mountain, a village of 200 on the Seward Peninsula in Alaska, the ground is covered with layers of sculpted wind blown snow and tracks from skis and snow mobiles.

I'm in a community a short flight or an hour of so by snowmobile, outside Nome as an artist in the schools. On the first evening of spring, with temperatures hovering around minus 10 degrees F, while I ate a little local fare of crock pot musk ox with the principal, First lady Michelle Obama ushered in the day with a groundbreaking on the South Lawn of the White House. As many know, the Obamas plan to grow their own organic vegetables, berries and herbs. It is a teaching tool and a hands on illustration/commentary on the importance of access to fresh fruits and vegetables and a healthy diet.

"The White House Kitchen Garden," is not the first on the White House grounds. Eleanor Roosevelt's vegetable plot inspired as many as 20 million victory gardens during World War II. Toward the end of the war, nearly 40-percent of the country's fresh produce was home grown. Michael Pollan, among others, has been urging us to return to growing our own produce. He cited a recent National Gardening Association study that revealed a $70 investment can yield $600 in fruits and vegetables.

I've had excellent locally picked wild blueberries from the freezer, seen photos of willow leaves in seal oil and know that in the warm summer months there might be a few gardens here too. No matter the images of the far North, there is more than blubber to eat here. Yet, among all the promotion of gardens and such, it seems relevant to note, as the film points out, eating a local, ethical and healthy diet is not a one size fits all matter.

SCREENINGS COMING UP:
March and April include screenings and events from Florida to Nome and from Bainbridge Island to Boston. Just as we hoped, these screenings are not just showings alone. They include local events, gatherings and discussions with a vegan potluck in Pasadena, beekeepers and ranchers in Colorado, a discussion series that includes Anna Lappe in New York, as part of the Unitarian Universalist Green Sanctuary movement to improve our impact on the Earth, a Slow Food in Boston event and Earth Day celebrations in Homer, Alaska.

Ellen Frankenstein, on 03.21.09 @ 10:26AKT [link]

Thursday, March 12th

EATING ALASKA MARCH-APRIL 2009
This is a film, said one viewer at the Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival about what we close or are willing to close our eyes to. Even with hunting as a thread/ challenge to the filmmaker-as-outsider and something that is foreign to many folks who grow up urban-suburban, another audience member commented that seeing Eating Alaska had changed the way she thinks about what she eats. That is a lot for one underfunded film to do, but we do hope the film triggers people to think about what is on their plate, where it come from and how our choices have an impact.

UPCOMING SCREENINGS
• Reel to Real Film Festival.
Missoula, Montana, March 14, 2009

• Yes, We Must! Environmental Film and Discussion Series. March 27, 2009 7 PM
Cedars Unitarian Universalist Church Green Sanctuary committee, Grace Episcopal Church Earth and Spirit committee, Eagle Harbor Congregational Church (EHCC), and IslandWood are sponsoring this film series from January through March.(105 Winslow Way W., Bainbridge Island). Time: doors open at 6:45 PM; program begins at 7 PM.

• Nome, AK Community Screening
March 28, 2009 Time TBA

• Screening & Local, Vegetarian Potluck
Sunday, March 29 (5:30 PM - 9:00 PM)
626 Cypress Ave, Pasadena CA
Little Homestead in the City

• Edible Phoenix/Slow Food Phoenix. March 2009 TBA

• Ketchikan, Alaska Community Screening
April 6, 2009

•National Public Health Week April 6-10
Screening at the University of Alaska. Anchorage
Time/place TBA

• Food for Thought Film Festival, New York City
April 11 or 18, 2009

• Homer, Alaska Community Screening
April 22, 2009

• Copper Landing AK Community Screening
April 23, 2009

Ellen Frankenstein, on 03.12.09 @ 22:02AKT [link]

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