Thursday, March 26, 2009

Jeffrey T. Verespej-Polycultures: Food Where We Live

Polycultures: Food Where We Live, was the one film through the entire Cleveland International Film Festival that I was most looking forward to. And perhaps because I walked in with so much excitement was the reason I walked out wanting more. It's certainly a good movie, but compared to the level I had dreamed about, I found it to be an average production.

Local Foods is one of my favorite subjects, so it's quite convenient (some might say coincidental) that Cleveland is one of the national leaders in this movement. Between our fantastic networks like E4S and Local Food Cleveland, or our dozens of farmers markets, innovative approaches like City Fresh, Fresh Fork Market, and Local Crop, we have plenty going for us. Not to mention being the only major city in the country with farming zoning, the fact that we're turning lots left and right to farms, and we have a great restaurant community led by innovators such as Great Lakes Brewing Company and the new Greenhouse Tavern.

What does this all mean? Healthier communities physically. Healthier communities communitally (not a word, but funny). Healthier communities environmentally. Healthier communities economically. It means we can become a region that feeds ourselves almost completely by ourselves - our money stays here to enrich our communities through healthier and more sustainable food. It means we take the roughly 15,000 abandoned lots in Cleveland and begin supplying our own food and putting our people to work. It means a smarter, more connected population. These are the dreams and the vision that many of us share in Cleveland.

But where was the narrative in the film? Set to a series of seven 'plots,' this seemed to just scratch the surface rather than offer the transformational approach to the subject I had thought about. The themes covered often seemed to overlap, weren't defined, and lacked the context to really bring the message home. It was something I was hoping that could push us over the top as a region and through the 'desert' as referred to in the film between small scale & large scale. It wasn't. An incredible topic for an incredible city, but the film was just fine.

3 comments:

David Pearl said...

Hello Jeffrey/Messy,

I'm one of the filmmakers behind PolyCultures. My role was mainly to structure the "narrative arc" of the movie, so I was particularly interested to read your review of it. Since this is an evolving and community-oriented project, we certainly appreciate all critical feedback - as such, I've posted a link to your review on our blog at http://polycultures.blogspot.com/

I'm sorry to hear that you felt underwhelmed by the movie. I must say, though, that I felt underwhelmed by your review of it, and I would love to get some more fleshed out feedback from you, as you seem to know quite a bit about local food in NEO...

How might you have structured the narrative differently? Did you feel we didn't cover enough things happening in Cleveland (e.g. E4S, Fresh Fork)? What is the transformational approach to this topic that you have been thinking about? We are doing additional editing and if there is a way to represent a more transformational approach using your input and the hundred or so hours of unused footage, I would love to at least attempt it. How would you have better defined the themes and prevented them from overlapping too much? I intended the overlapping of themes to be a way of reinforcing them in the minds of viewers who don't know much about this topic and helping people see how the connections between seemingly disparate things are a big part of what make this system in NEO so robust. I'm curious, what context did you feel really would have brought the message home - I'm guessing maybe more background on the history of Cleveland and its present situation...?

I'll check back here in a day or so, if you'd like to elaborate on the Messy blog. And/or please feel free to join the conversation at http://polycultures.blogspot.com/ I very much look forward to hearing more from you...

Best,
David

JeffreyT said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
David Pearl said...

Nice to hear back from you! I'll follow-up via email...