- Media Advisory for "What's On Your Plate" Film Screening at BAMcinemaFEST
BAMcinématek screens What’s on Your Plate? within BAMcinemaFEST and in conjunction with Afro-Punk
Catherine Gund’s food justice documentary What’s on Your Plate? Screens in Fort Greene Park on June 27
BAMcinemaFEST is a a sixteen-day festival of new independent films and repertory favorites,
running from June 17–July 2
Brooklyn, May 21, 2009—BAMcinemaFEST, in conjunction with Afro-Punk, will be presenting a free outdoor screening of Catherine Gund’s food justice documentary, What’s On Your Plate? in Fort Greene Park, June 27.
The event includes a live musical performance, and will be introduced by the filmmakers.
What’s on Your Plate documents the journey of Sadie Hope-Gund and Safiyah Riddle, two intelligent and inquisitive eleven year old girls from Lower Manhattan, as they explore their place in the food chain. Through the course of the film, the girls address questions regarding the origins of the food they eat, how many miles it travels from the harvest to their plate, how it’s prepared, and the effect it all has on their bodies and the environment.
In search of answers, the girls visit local farmers, greenmarkets and supermarkets, as well as the New York City Board of Education’s school lunch program. They find solutions for healthier more environmentally responsible ways of eating, and begin to understand the economic impact of the way we eat.
With child obesity rampant, and public concern for the environment at a fever pitch, this film could not come at a better time. Ideal for families to watch together, What’s on Your Plate? presents a variety of perspectives on how food reaches our urban community and its associated challenges.
What’s On Your Plate?, U.S., 2009, 73min, DOCUMENTARY
Director: Catherine Gund
Producers: Catherine Gund, Tanya Selvaratnam
With Sadie Hope-Gund, Safiyah Riddle
About Director Catherine Gund
Catherine Gund, is an Emmy Award-nominated producer, director, writer and organizer. Her media work — which focuses on arts and culture, HIV/AIDS and reproductive health, and other social justice issues — has screened around the world in festivals and theaters, on PBS and the Sundance Channel, at community-based organizations, universities, and museums. As a filmmaker who has worked in all aspects of production for 20 years, her interest is in telling stories and finding the details that educate and inspire.
Gund’s productions include Motherland Afghanistan (AFI Fest Official Selection; PBS broadcast); A Touch of Greatness (Best Documentary Award, Hamptons Film Festival, Ohio Film Festival, and Denver International Film Festival; PBS broadcast; Emmy nomination); Making Grace (theatrical release); On Hostile Ground (Sundance Channel broadcast); Hallelujah! Ron Athey: A Story of Deliverance (Best Documentary Award, Chicago Underground Film Festival); When Democracy Works; Positive: Life with HIV; and Keep Your Laws Off My Body; as well as work with the collectives DIVA TV (co-founder) and Paper Tiger Television. She co-founded the Third Wave Foundation and was on the founding board of Working Films and remains a consultant. She has served on the advisory council for MediaRights.org and as a consultant for the Robeson Fund.
About BAMcinemaFEST
BAMcinématek launches BAMcinemaFEST, June 17–July 2, a sixteen-day festival of new independent films and repertory favorites.
—indieWIRE on BAMcinemaFEST: http://www.indiewire.com/article/nyc_to_welcome_bamcinemafest_with_june_debut/
The festival celebrates ten years of repertory screenings at BAM. This year’s line up features fourteen New York premieres as well as nineteen repertory screenings and more.
About BAMcinématek
BAM Rose Cinemas “offers one of the most civilized movie–going experiences in the city”
—The New York Times
The four-screen BAM Rose Cinemas (BRC) opened in 1998 to offer Brooklyn audiences alternative and independent films that might not play in the borough otherwise, making BAM the only performing arts center in the country with two mainstage theaters and a multiplex cinema. In July of 1999, beginning with a series celebrating the work of Spike Lee, BAMcinématek was born as Brooklyn's only daily year-round repertory film program. BAMcinématek presents new and rarely seen contemporary films, classics from cinema history, work by local artists, and festivals of films from around the world, often with special appearances by directors, actors, and other guests.
Entering its 10th year, BAMcinématek has not only presented major retrospectives by well-known filmmakers such as Michelangelo Antonioni, Shohei Imamura, Manoel de Oliveira, and Luchino Visconti, but it has also introduced New York audiences to contemporary artists such as Pedro Costa and Apichatpong Weerasethakul. In addition BAMcinématek programmed the first U.S. retrospective of directors Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Arnaud Desplechin, and Hong Sang-soo. Recently BAMcinématek co-curated a three year summer collaboration of new feature/documentary/short films with the Sundance Institute, 2006–2008.
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