“Food Chains” private screenings in San Francisco, LA pack the house with food movement, farmworker

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http://ciw-online.org/blog/2014/08/food-chains-ca/

August 7th, 2014




San Francisco press calls film an “incredibly moving documentary”; Dolores Huerta pledges to “joyfully promote the film and the Fair Food campaign”!…

From left to right, Smriti Keshari (producer, “Food Chains”), former US Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, CIW co-founder Lucas Benitez, David Damian Figueroa (MALDEF, executive producer “Food Chains”), Dolores Huerta (co-founder, UFW), Jon Esformes (Operating Partner, Pacific Tomato Growers), Sanjay Rawal (director, “Food Chains”), gather for a photo following last week’s screening at Creative Artists Agency’s offices in Los Angeles.


Last week was a busy one on the “Food Chains” calendar! With two invitation-only screenings in California, the “Food Chains” road crew continued to marshal support for the first feature film to take a close look at the CIW’s Campaign for Fair Food and the groundbreaking Fair Food Program ahead of its big Nov. 21st theatrical release.

First up, San Francisco. “Food Chains” director Sanjay Rawal reports from the scene:

On Tuesday evening, chef Alice Waters, journalist Davia Nelson and documentary filmmaker James Redford hosted a private screening of FOOD CHAINS at the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas in San Francisco along with the Neda Nobari Foundation and CRLA. The one-time-only sneak peek in the Bay Area proved to be a high-demand event. Audience members came from far and wide for this standing room-only screening and included heads of major foundations, local food celebrities, vintners, and farmers.

James Redford (right) gave a moving introduction to the evening in which he referenced the long history of his brother-in-law and Food Chains’s Executive Producer, Eric Schlosser, in reporting on human rights violations in farm labor. Venerated chef and farm-to-table pioneer Alice Waters spoke of how viscerally moving the film was, giving viewers “a lens into the lives of the very people who pick our food.” She remarked on her close relationship with the CIW and her aspiration that the Fair Food Program reach the farthest corners of the agricultural sector.

At the film’s conclusion, as Lucas Benitez was introduced, the audience leapt to its feet in a standing ovation. Lucas led an in-depth discussion on the film that was punctuated with some contentious opinions from people representing the Napa Valley wine sector, which is profiled in the film.

FULL story at link.