Professor Andy Grace Finishes Film
- January 31st, 2012
- in TCF Faculty, TCF News & Notes
Exciting news from Professor Andy Grace: his film, Eating Alabama, has just been completed.
Here’s the announcement from the Eating Alabama Website:
This all started about four years ago, when I talked my wife Rashmi into doing something a little ridiculous. We had recently moved back to Alabama after graduate school out West, and, like a lot of people, we were starting to think more critically about the food we eat – where it’s grown, how it gets to us, who grows it. Both Rashmi and I have farmers in our family history, but a few generations back there was this clean break with the land. I understood on a kind of historical/economic/sociological level how that break from the land happened, but I’d never thought much about what it meant to those of us that came afterwards. And so that was the genesis of this idea – what would it be like to try and go back?
Short of selling the house, quitting our jobs, and starting a farm, the only way we knew how to go back to a local food economy was to completely change our diets. We decided to eat only food grown or raised within the state of Alabama. Some friends joined us too, and we started a blog (which you’ll find archived on this site). And I started filming.
I had a kind of naive assumption about this movie – that we would do our little eating project, that we find some connection to all the farmers I assumed were out there, and that everything would wrap itself up in a nice and tidy package. But that’s not usually how documentaries happen, and this one was no different. The film I ended up making doesn’t look much like the one I envisioned – but that’s partly why we’re in this in the first place, right? To try and understand something better?
Anyway, the film is finished. And now we’re proud to show it off. Stay tuned to the website, follow us onFacebook and Twitter, and please sign up for the email list to be alerted about future screenings. We’ll be announcing more screening dates in the very near future.
And if you’ve followed the blog from the very beginning – thanks. Your readership and your comments throughout the years have been wonderful. Thanks to all of you for your support.
-Andy