RED DOOR MEDIA NEWS

Summer 2008:  BACK TO THE GARDEN
new documentary in production

www.cominghometorealfood.comcumentary in production.                                              

What's for dinner?  That's the complicated question we explore in our new documentary-in-progress, Back to the Garden.

American laboratories invent 17,000 new "food" products each year.  Ingredients listed on packaged foods include elements no one can pronounce.  Americans spend less on food than they did twenty years ago, eat more calories, and grow fatter and sicker.  What does food have to do with it?  Everything.

The exploitation of the American diet is one of the most significant and least recognized cover ups of the last several decades.  Our film will explore food as commodity, the process by which food as we know it, or knew it, is transformed into a mockery of food, and in which the only beneficiaries are corporate pockets.

We will also take an encouraging look at the agricultural revolution that is building momentum across America.  Even as the corporate stranglehold on the global food system intensifies, a community of farmers and consumers dedicated to food that optimizes well-being is spreading, one *CSA and one farmers' market at a time. Back to the Garden compares the choices: food concocted in laboratories that leaves a path of destruction and disease in its wake, or food that builds healthy people, healthy soil, and healthy communities.

*CSA: Community Supported Agriculture is a small-farm marketing model that provides year-round income for the farmer and an intimate, season-long farm experience for the customer.

July - 2007  Documentary: Ourtown

A Winner in the Maine Documentary Film Competition and an Official Selection of the Camden International Film Festival

PRODUCER: WENDY HEBB
DIRECTOR: MICHAEL RICHARD           
EDITOR: DOREEN CONBOY

OURTOWN is the story of a small community in Maine forced to consider the consequences when Wal-Mart announces plans to build a SuperCenter in this town of 2000 inhabitants. 

"When I heard that Wal-Mart wanted to build a SuperCenter in our town, it was as though everything I love about Damariscotta was threatened."  Jenny Mayher, Co-founder, OurTown.

OURTOWN follows the story of two young mothers-turned-activists who challenged what many believed was "a done deal".  They launched a grass-roots organization opposed to out-of-scale development, and with the support of their fellow citizens, exercised their right to determine how their town would grow.

This is the story a town tells about itself: the issues that divide, the issues that unite, and the empowerment that comes when people claim responsibility for the places where they live and work and raise their families.

Ultimately, the film asks the questions: Who is in charge? Who gets to decide? What kind of town do you want to live in?

"I enjoyed this film, for its landscapes, and for the kind of controversy it depicts, and above all for the reassurance it offers - that the small and local can now and then prevail against the powerful and multinational."

    Tracy Kidder, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner

Visit the OURTOWN website. Buy the DVD. See the trailer.


June - 2007
Maine Documentary, Short Film Competition Selections Announced
06/15/2007

The Official Selections of the 2007 Maine Documentary Film Competition and the Maine Short Film Competition were announced today by the Maine Film Office.

The Official Selections were chosen by juries made up of Maine media production professionals. Official Selections were chosen from more than 30 submissions from Maine media artists this year.

* "Facing the Past, Malaga Island" and "Fiddling to Fame," two episodes from the Maine Public Broadcasting Network "Maine Experience" series. The Malaga Island episode was produced and directed by Anita Clearfield and edited by Michael McDade. The fiddling episode was produced and directed by Frank Ferrel and edited by Heidi Ann Perkins. The executive producer for both segments was Chris Sweet.
* "There Ought to Be a Law," coproduced and codirected by Anita Clearfield, Shoshana Hoose and Geoffrey Leighton.
* "Rockport Pottery," directed by Evan E. Richards.
* "Front Wards, Back Wards," produced by W. C. Rogers and Melissa Paly and directed by W.C. Rogers.
* "Ourtown," produced by Wendy Hebb, edited by Doreen Conboy and directed by Michael Richard.
* "Trap Day on Monhegan," directed by Richard Searls.
* "Living the Banknorth TD 250," an episode of the TV auto racing series "Inside Line" produced and directed by Gene Landry of Persistence Media.
* "There's This Thing Called...Dishes," produced by Kelley Swan and Justin Morse and directed by Jeffrey Griecci.
* "Coastal Choices: Learning from Five Conservation Success Stories on Maine's Coast," produced and directed by Melissa Paly.

The two competitions are part of the annual Celebration of Maine Filmmakers’ program. Organized by the Maine Film Office, the Celebration includes competitions, film screenings, workshops and other events that demonstrate the breadth of talent within Maine's media production industry. The annual Celebration is cosponsored by the Maine Film Commission, the Maine Film and Video Association and the Maine International Film Festival.