Monday, March 8th
EATING ALASKA SCREENINGS FROM NATURAL FOOD COOPS TO OUTDOOR WOMEN WORKSHOPS
What does a Becoming an Outdoor Woman Workshop, teaching outdoor skills including hunting and fishing, have in common with a natural food coop?
In the next weeks a BOW workshop and a food coop are both showing the documentary, Eating Alaska (details below), but they have other things in common, things I might not have thought about before I set off to make and show this documentary about looking for the "right thing" to eat.
My quest in Eating Alaska was partially sparked by the realization some of my female friends in Alaska, hunted, trapped and fished, without men in the lead or even in tow. It struck me that breaking stereotypes of gender roles is one matter. Having the skills do these activities, however, is less about image and more about motivation and action. I first heard of a national program called Becoming an Outdoor Woman as we made the film. It is in an educational program created to encourage women to be comfortable and more aware of the outdoor world and to break down the barriers to being active, be it dipnetting for salmon in Alaska or turkey hunting in Indiana.
In a symposium, organizers found out this:
"Two thirds of the barriers listed related to the fact that once they got there, most women didn't know what to do outdoors - they didn't learn from their parents as youngsters, or didn't belong to outdoor groups as a child. And when they reached adulthood, they often found that their life partner wasn't the perfect teacher of outdoor skills."
Today, about 46 states, eight provinces, and at least two other countries offer BOW workshops, and more than 20,000 women attend events every year. In the upcoming workshop in Chickaloon, Alaska (not far from our former governor Sarah Palin's home town of Wasila) students have a chance to learn to tie knots, be safe with firearms, hone tracking and animal sign skills, make snow caves and survive in the cold and use a chain saw and to have fun and camaraderie too.
Cu to another scene, from an exterior with women lined up, arms outstretched, bow string pulled, arrows aimed at the targets, to a cozy interior, past a display of organic spray free apples and potatoes, a peanut butter grinder, fair trade dark chocolate bars and bins of lentils and granola, to a room with folding chairs and a screen. The viewers who come to the film series sponsored by Food Co-ops, like the Eureka Co-op Community Kitchen, might not be interested in field dressing a moose, or fishing through a hole in the ice, but like the women who are gaining outdoors skills. They are encouraging a connection to food and environment that crosses hunters and gatherers, be they ones with a bow and compass, or a smart car and cloth bags.
This next coop to screen the film, the North Coast Co-op, is in northern California. The website tells us they offer good food without artificial ingredients, using organic or natural ingredients whenever possible. The democratic, volunteer, member-owned food coop movement started in the 1970's. The rise of bigger stores selling organic foods and the use of "natural" on lots of labels, might be a challenge to coops, but there are still lots around and plenty devoted members from coast to coast. They are showing films like Eating Alaska, Fresh and the World According to Monsanto to educate people to be more active in food choices and how what you eat impacts out health and the health of the planet,
In this era of waking up to the horrors of the industrial food system, frightening reports on the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, record unemployment, not to mention high rates of obesity and diabetes, how do we find comfort and health? It seems all the more important to be involved in activities that encourage well-being, self-sufficiency and connection to the source of our food and to try to cut our carbon footprint. Knowing where you food comes from, who "cut up my meat," as a teen in Kotzebue says in the film, may not end a war, or make a huge dent in the realm of climate change, but it is ownership and step in taking responsibility for what is around us. I have to say, listing both of these screenings in the same month reminds me of common aspirations, that I hope in some way can outweigh what feels at times like so much divisiveness, and a whole lot of negativity and apathy.
Eating Alaska Screenings Ahead
Winter BOW (Becoming an Outdoors Woman) Workshop, Chickaloon, AK
Alaska Fish and Game BOW
March 12-14, 2010
Don't Buy Food from Strangers Film Series
Tuesdays, March 16,
Akron Main Library Auditorium
(60 S. Main Street, Akron 44326)
6-9 p.m.
Hosted by Countryside Conservancy
Food System Film Festival, Michigan State University,
Saturday, March 20
Movies and Munchies in the Eureka Coop Community Kitchen
Friday March 26, 12 & 6 PM
4th & B street
More News
Want to see Eating Alaska on-line?
Coming very soon for a small fee you can have a 90 day stream, with customized options for institutions. Check it out at New Day Digital.
The Sitka Local Foods Network and Eating Alaska both received a magazine mention in an article about food sustainability in Alaska. Click here to see the article and read about the network, http://sitkalocalfoodsnetwork.org/.
Ellen Frankenstein, on 03.08.10 @ 19:38AKT [link]
Friday, February 26th
Saltenas, Screenings and Interviews
Whole Grains?
Above is a photograph of a plate of saltenas in Sucre, Bolivia. Why is it here? We, Ellen, the film director and Spencer, the fisher/hunter/partial spark for the documentary, Eating Alaska, left our freezer of local fish and jars of beach asparagus behind to burn some fossil fuels and visit Argentina and Bolivia. Travel is a good way to provoke thoughts on the local and the global and also, of course, to extend your palate, try new foods and eat things that aren't local to your home.
Saltenas are a Bolivan type of empanada; warm savory pastries that hold a combination of chicken or meat, greens and sauce and are sometimes vegetarian too. it is a tradition to enjoy salteñas as a mid-morning snack, although vendors often start selling salteñas very early in the morning.
In our weeks on the road, we enjoyed Bolivian salteñas, soursop, passion fruit and papaya juices and the cafes and ice cream in Argentina, art museums, salt flats and incredible terrain. At the same time, we found ourselves dreading what seemed like an endless supply of chewy white bread and piles of white rice. Perhaps we've gotten a little spoiled by not eating out that much in the USA or elsewhere, so we just don't see all the white buns and scoops of glowing white rice here too. We live on an island (in many ways) and order bulk whole grains and brown rice and make bread with barley,chick pea and other flours. White rice, I've been reading, stores longer and can be easier to digest. For some cultures white vs. brown rice is associated with wealth. You have to wonder, how would the health of people worldwide be impacted if more people got to eat whole grains?
Screenings
We'll soon be posting more of the upcoming Eating Alaska screenings.
Here is one:
University of Alaska Fairbanks,
Bristol Bay Campus, Room 128, Dillingham
Sustainability Series
Saturday, February 27, 7 PM
An Interview with the Director
While taking a break, this interview was posted on the website of Commitment
For women who are committed to their work, their world, their soul mate, their children, their friends, themselves...
Here is an excerpt (more at Commitment)
CommitmentNow: You are a vegetarian who lives in Alaska. Eating Alaska is a thoughtful, funny and beautifully filmed documentary film you made to question the ethical and sustainable way to live when it comes to food. By the end of the film you state that you have a new understanding of how we relate to where we live and what we put in our stomachs. What is this understanding?
Ellen Frankenstein: Maybe it is a combination of understanding and acceptance of this:
Eating is not simple. When you stop to think about it a lot of the daily choices we make are clouded in complexities and challenges. There are not simple answers to what is the best or right thing to eat, for our bodies or the planet. In the end, my hope is that we can make choices that make sense for where we live and that we all can have access to healthy and safe, nutritious food.
CommitmentNow: What inspired you to make this film?
Ellen: It is a combination of interests colliding with personal experience. I have thought about the politics of food for many years. I decided as a teenager meat eating did not make sense because of all the grain and feed that goes to cattle. I figured that while some people ate steaks, other starved. At the same time, I began to work in different cultures and was intensely uncomfortable saying “no” to food that people offered me. When I moved to Alaska and found myself surrounded by hunters and fishers, I changed what was on my plate. When I discovered some women I knew hunted, I thought it would be a great subject for a film and way to explore issues of how we relate to where we live and what we eat as well as play with our expectation of gender roles.
Ellen Frankenstein, on 02.26.10 @ 10:47AKT [link]
Saturday, January 2nd
EATING ALASKA IN 2010
RESPONSE
"As I watched Eating Alaska, I kept thinking of the issues raised in your film and how relevant they are to our conference. This film will resonate with the small farmers who grow and market their products, school administrators interested in sourcing nutritious, local food, and policy makers working on making those connections."
-Sherrie Beyer, Coordinator Wisconsin Local Food Summit.
"It's hard to eat local in Alaska if you're a vegetarian. While exploring Americans' relationship to food, this film also creatively challenges our notions of how women nurture. Eating Alaska is an amusing and thought-provoking resource for discussing our assumptions about gendered behavior and women's relationship to the natural world."
-Sharon Gmelch, Professor of Anthropology
University of San Francisco
"Often humorous and light-hearted, it still addresses a serious topic, which affects us all."
-Port Townsend Film Festival Viewer
"In Eating Alaska, Ellen Frankenstein takes us on a locavore's odyssey, searching for the meaning of place through the foods we eat. Not content with simple answers, Frankenstein poses the provocative questions many of us avoid asking as we navigate the current culinary terrain. Funny, engaging, thought-provoking and refreshingly personal, this film takes us on a heartfelt quest for ethical eating in a challenging and uniquely magnificent land."
Jessica Prentice, author of Full Moon Feast: Food and the Hunger for Connection, and coiner of the word locavore.
SOME SCREENINGS AHEAD & IN THE WORKS
-Princeton Environmental Film Festival, NJ, January 17th, 2010
Wisconsin Local Food Summit/Value Added Ag Conference
January 24 & 25, 2010
-Heifer Project International MOOvies Series, Little Rock, AR
-Lowell Film Collaborative, MA
-Humboldt and Eureka Food Co-Op Series:
Movies & Munchies in the Community Kitchen
As the the new year gets rolling, we'll be setting up more community and conference screenings and getting the film on campuses to add to the conversation on sustainability, food literacy and food justice. Contact us at info@eatingalaska to set up a screening and go to www.newdayfilms.com to order copies of the film for schools, universities, libraries, churches and community groups.
Note this image and interpretation of "Eating Alaska" is created by a student at Mt. Edgecumbe High School, a school in Sitka attended by students from all over the state.
Ellen Frankenstein, on 01.02.10 @ 16:06AKT [link]
Thursday, December 3rd
AUSTIN, AWARD, GUIDE
REEL WOMEN PRESENTS SCREENING OF DOCUMENTARY EATING ALASKA
DIRECTOR/PRODUCER IN ATTENDANCE,
WILL CONDUCT WORKSHOP ON DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKING!
Here's the announcement:
REEL WOMEN, a 501c3 non-profit organization dedicated to offering education, mentoring, networking and screenings supporting women (and men) in the film industry, is sponsoring a workshop and screening of the documentary Eating Alaska on Sunday, December 6. The workshop will be held from 1:00-3:00 p.m., and the screening starts at 3:30 p.m.. The events will be held at THE INDEPENDENT, a screening facility located at 501 Brushy (at East 5th Street, just east of IH-35). Q&A with the filmmakers will follow screening.
Director Frankenstein and producer SHIRLEY THOMPSON will lead the workshop and have named it Chicks, Start Your Doc: Turn Your Idea Into A Film. They will talk about launching a project, thinking about which ideas work for films and for funding, show fundraising clips, talk about their process on Eating Alaska and other films. Also covered: collaborations, thinking about outreach, distribution. They are both part of New Day Films, the national self-distribution co-op of social issue filmmakers.
A portion of the proceeds from the screening will be donated to Youth Launch's URBAN ROOTS, a youth development program that uses sustainable agriculture as means to affect lasting change for youth participants, and to nourish East Austin residents who currently have limited access to healthy foods. On a 2.5 acre urban organic farm, the project provides employment, life and job skills and service opportunities to under-served youth aged 14-18 in East Austin.
REEL WOMEN will provide complimentary tickets to youth involved in the Urban Roots program and also to middle-school girls that participate in the Morning Star Rising program at Fulmore Middle School.
COSTS:
Workshop Only: $30 / $20 RW Members.
Screening Only: $10 / $8 RW Members.
Workshop AND Screening: $35 / $25 RW Members.
New Member Deal: Workshop/Screening/Membership for just $60!
For more information, please contact reelwomen@reelwomen.org or call 512-971-1663
EATING ALASKA: ART AND HEALTH!
We just got the news the project has been awarded The Alaska Public Health Association's 2009 Community Service Award for Health. In the process of making this film and in its use we've worked with nutritionists, health educators, medical and public health practitioners to add to the conversation about what we can do to make our homes, workplaces, schools and communities healthier and more sustainable. We appreciate the help everyone has given to the project to help us "contribute to improving the health of Alaskans" and others far beyond.
EATING ALASKA GUIDE RELEASED
We've e uploaded a Guide for Screening and Use to this site (see the host a screening page) and on the New Day Films page for Eating Alaska. This 43-page guide features sections to support use of this documentary by both educators in schools and universities and community facilitators/organizers.
The guide includes ideas for setting up community events, activities to do with students and resources for kids and adults. From mapping with teens to creating a local foods potluck and provoking discussion and action, we welcome active and creative uses of this film. We encourage feedback and want to update the guide periodically to include new ideas and resources. Contact us at info@eatingalaska.com.
Ellen Frankenstein, on 12.03.09 @ 05:52AKT [link]
Friday, November 20th
PRE T-DAY SCREENINGS
EAfishr
Palmer "Local Food, Local Harvest" Film Fest
Join Palmer Arts Council from Thursday, November 19th through Sunday, November 22nd for their first "Local Food, Local Harvest" Film Fest. The Film Fest is at the Strangebird Consulting Office in downtown Palmer.
"Eating Alaska - Saturday, 7/21 at 7pm;
"Ingredients" - Sunday, 11/22 at 3pm.
After the Sunday showing there will be a discussion about women in agriculture with Cynthia Vignetti. Suggested donations are $10-15 for all films except for Sunday, which is free!
Contact: Bridgette J.Preston
phone 907-745-2846
e-mail: preston@gci.net
Dinner & A Movie
CP Cinemas & Ballygiblin's Restaurant
Carleton Place, Ontario
Monday, Nov. 23, 2009
Arctic Circle Film Festival
Eating Alaska Screening
Kotzebue, Alaska
Tuesday, November 24th 7 pm
Contact: Linda Jeschke
Chief of Interpretation
Western Arctic National Parklands
Phone: 907/442-8321
E-mail: Linda_Jeschke@nps.gov
Fairbanks Eating Alaska Screening
Schaible Auditorium, University of Alaska Fairbanks
Tuesday, November 24th 7 pm
Sponsored by the Fairbanks Community Cooperative Market and the UAF Coalition for Peace and Justice
MORE ON THE EAT LOCAL FILM SERIES IN ONTARIO
Ballygiblin's restaurant owner, Roger Weldon organized this series. Weldon says, "My idea is to try to help generate some awareness about why we do what we do in supporting local. This Canadian "Eat Local' film series offers a dinner/show package, or you can just catch the movie where there will also be a wine tasting. Weldon decided it was time to offer a series of food-themed documentaries after coming back from a Terra Madre conference. Terra Madre is a network of groups committed to producing quality food with responsible and sustainable practices.
The series opened in October with the classic Big Night starring Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub.
Eating Alaska is second up, to followed by:
The World According to Monsanto
a documentary that looks at the global corporate giant.
Food, Inc.
how the world has changed since multinational corporations took over global food production
Mondovino
how corporations have tried to bring assimilation into the world of wine production.
The Future of Food
examining how food itself has been changed by technology.
From The Canadian Gazette
Ellen Frankenstein, on 11.20.09 @ 17:55AKT [link]
Wednesday, November 4th
PROVOKING QUESTIONS, ART AND SCREENINGS
CONVERSATIONS AND ART
After I got back from the communities of Klukwan and Haines, Alaska recently, I had a thought: what could be more intriguing than on the one hand provoking rural Alaskan kids, who have grown up fishing and hunting, to talk about why someone would be a vegetarian. At the same time, we have been provoking urban festival goers, sustainability advocates and vegetarians to ask themselves if eating locally meant hunting, could they pull the trigger?
Meanwhile, we are finishing up and testing out a guide for screening and discussion. That has meant doing things with kids like asking them to map their communities and what they do outdoors, be it pick berries, gather seaweed or play on the beach. We have had elementary kids drawing, writing and talking about the foods they get locally, the foods they buy at the store and what they'd miss about their community if they left. For kids in Alaska, the latter often brings up things like mountains, ocean and forest. What they would miss if the moved, can connect to what they had for dinner the night before. Along the way, I found myself working on spelling and listening skills with middle schoolers and being amazed at all the things audience engagement and grassroots outreach can lead to.
EATING ALASKA SCREENINGS AND BROADCAST AHEAD
From a synagogue on the East coast to a celebration of deer in Alaska, we're organizing screenings and welcoming more. Looks like we'll be offering the film EATING ALASKA nationally through PBS in the spring sometime too. We encourage schools, universities, public libraries and community groups to order copies from New Day Films the national self-distribution coop we work with and use the film to talk about ethics, gender roles, food choices, sustainability and more.
American Conservation Film Festival
Sat November 7, 2009 1 P.M.
Shepherdstown, West Virginia
Green Reel
Film Series at
Congregation Agudas Achim
901 North Main Street, Attleboro, MA
Sunday November 8, 200 7:00 p.m.
Craig Alaska
as part of the Deer Celebration
Craig High School
Monday, November 9, 2009 7 PM
With filmmaker, Ellen Frankenstein
Red Rock Film Festival
Zion Flix II: Dilemmas for Puzzled People
St. George & Springdale, Utah
Nov. 13, 2009
Dinner & A Movie
CP Cinemas & Ballygiblin's Restaurant
Carleton Place, Ontario
Monday, Nov. 23, 2009
Palmer Arts Council Food Film Festival
Q & A with Amy Pettit from the Division of Ag. and DeliciousDave, local caterer and produce purveyor
Saturday, Nov. 21
Contact: Bridgette J.Preston
preston@gci.net
Fairbanks, Alaska
Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2009
Schaible Auditorium, University of Alaska Fairbanks
Hosted by the Fairbanks Community Cooperative Market
Santa Clara Film Series
Nov 27- 29
Santa Clara, Cuba
Havana International Film Festival
Dec 5-(TBA)
Cuba
Reel Women, Austin, TX
Sunday, December 6, 2009
With Filmmakers Ellen Frankenstein & Shirley Thompson
1:00-3:00pm Workshop on Documentary Filmmaking
3:30pm Screening
Location: The Independent, 501 Brushy, Austin 78702
Food, Q&A following screening
Little Rock, Arkansas
December 10, 2009
Filmmaker, Ellen Frankenstein and co-star, Spencer Severson, attending
Details forthcoming.
Ellen Frankenstein, on 11.04.09 @ 11:39AKT [link]
Tuesday, October 13th
From Bon Appetit to Bill McKibben
PRESS: BON APPETIT SAYS
"If Sarah Palin's love of moose burgers sparked your interest in Alaskan cuisine, the documentary Eating Alaska might provide further insight into "the last frontier." And while other regional cuisines might not feature caribou and salmon to the same degree, ultimately the movie speaks to a widespread trend in American eating: connecting to where we live, and coming to terms with what we eat and how we come by it."
SCREENINGS
This week Eating Alaska shows at the National Food Security Confrence in Des Moines Iowa, is on the agenda for the Alaska Native Brotherhood Grand Camp Meetings and next week shows in Haines and Kluckwan, Alaska. More film festivals and community screenings are ahead from West Virginia and Utah to Cuba and New Jersey.
THOUGHTS AND STATS
I'm reading Bill Mckibben's DEEP ECONOMY, published in 2007. He writes that he was thinking over a decade ago about the need for a "deep ecology that asked more profound questions about the choices people make in their daily lives. Now McKibben has moved onto "deep economy," explaining it as rethinking growth and efficiency as ideologies and taking a look at our appetite for more. As he writes, growth has created more inequality, we don't have the energy to keep the model going, and it doesn't seem like growth is making us happy.
Here are some stats from the first part of McKibben's book that echo a call to think about our daily choices. to question the ideas that more is better and to keep thinking about community:
- In 1946, the U.S was the happiest country among four advanced economies. Thirty years later the ranking was eighth among 11 so-called advanced countries. A decade later the ranking is 10th among 23 nations, many of them from from the third world.
-In the U.K. per gross domestic product grew 66 percent between 1971 and 2001. At the same time there was no reported increase in satisfaction. In the U.S. per capita gross national product grew 24 percent between 1947 and 1960. Rates of alcoholism, suicide and depression have risen, even as the amount of stuff we have has increased too.
-The size of new houses in the U.S. has doubled since 1970, even though the average number of people living in them has decreased.
-The media wage in the United States is same as it was thirty years ago.
-The percentage of Chinese who own cars matches that of Americans in 1912.
- Farmer's markets are the fastest growing part of our food economy and with that are new possibilities for community identity and land use.
Ellen Frankenstein, on 10.13.09 @ 10:12AKT [link]
