Food Chains | |
---|---|
Directed by | Sanjay Rawal |
Written by | Erin Barnett Sanjay Rawal |
Produced by | Smriti Keshari Hamilton Fish Sanjay Rawal |
Starring | Eve Ensler Barry Estabrook Dolores Huerta Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Kerry Kennedy Eva Longoria Eric Schlosser Forest Whitaker |
Cinematography | Forest Woodward |
Edited by | Erin Barnett |
Music by | Gil Talmi Macklemore |
Distributed by | Screen Media |
Release date |
|
Running time | 83 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Food Chains is a 2014 American documentary film about agricultural labor in the United States directed by Sanjay Rawal. It was the Recipient of the 2015 James Beard Foundation Award for Special/Documentary. [1]
In Immokalee, Florida, migrant farmworkers pick fruits and vegetables that are sold to large US food wholesalers. [2] However, their working conditions are shown to be less than favorable. [2] As a result, they form the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) to raise awareness and improve their circumstances. [3] Specifically, they go on a hunger strike to pressure Publix, a Florida-based food wholesaler, to pay them one penny more per pound of tomato. [3] Meanwhile, the documentary also shows farmworkers in the vineyards of the Napa Valley. [4]
The film was produced by actress and Democratic fundraiser Eva Longoria, Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser, and heiress Abigail Disney, among others. [4]
It was presented at the Berlin Film Festival, the Tribeca Film Festival and the Napa Valley Film Festival. [2] [4] Shortly after, Screen Media purchased the distribution rights for North America. [2] A Spanish version, narrated by actor Demián Bichir was released. [3]
In a review for The Hollywood Reporter , Frank Scheck suggested not much had changed since Harvest of Shame , a 1960 documentary about the same topic. [3] He concluded that Food Chains was 'simultaneously inspirational and deeply depressing.' [3] Writing for the San Francisco Chronicle , Tara Duggan added that there were 'many chilling moments' in the documentary. [4] In The New York Daily News , Elizabeth Weitzman called the documentary 'unsettling,' concluding 'you will certainly leave the theater more enlightened than when you arrived.'. [5] Jeannette Catsoulis of the New York Times called the film 'rousing' and 'emphatic and empathetic.'. [6]
Immokalee is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Collier County, Florida, United States.
Eric Matthew Schlosser is an American journalist and author known for his investigative journalism, such as in his books Fast Food Nation (2001), Reefer Madness (2003), and Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety (2013).
Eva Jacqueline Longoria Bastón is an American actress and producer. After a number of guest roles on several television series, she was recognized for her portrayal of Isabella Braña on the CBS daytime soap opera The Young and the Restless, on which she starred from 2001 to 2003. She is most known for her role as Gabrielle Solis on the ABC television series Desperate Housewives, which ran from 2004 to 2012, and for which she received Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations. She has also appeared in The Sentinel (2006), Over Her Dead Body (2008), For Greater Glory (2012), Frontera (2014), Lowriders (2016), and Overboard (2018). From 2015 to 2016, she starred as Ana Sofia Calderón on the short-lived NBC sitcom Telenovela, and was an executive producer for the Lifetime television series Devious Maids. She has also been an executive producer of social issue documentaries, including Food Chains and The Harvest.
The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) is a worker-based human rights organization based in Immokalee, Florida, which focuses on the fields of social responsibility, human trafficking, and gender-based violence at work. Built on a foundation of farmworker community organizing starting in 1993, and reinforced with the creation of a national consumer network since 2000, CIW's work has steadily grown over more than twenty years to encompass several overlapping spheres:
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The Fair Food Program (FFP) is a legally binding agreement between the Florida Tomato Growers and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW). It aims to provide Florida’s tomato workers with better wages and working conditions. The program has a list of six elements in order to ensure social responsibility and to create a strong partnership between workers, growers and buyers. The Fair Foods Standards Council (FFSC) oversees the program and ensures that standards are upheld. Big companies, including Taco Bell and Walmart have pledged to pay a penny more per pound of tomatoes and buy only from growers who comply with the program.
Sanjay Rawal is an Indian-American documentary film director who lives in New York City. His first feature length film Food Chains premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in its Culinary Cinema Programme in 2014 and had its US premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival. Food Chains was produced by Smriti Keshari, Eva Longoria, Eric Schlosser, and Rawal himself. Forest Whitaker narrates. Rawal was a winner of the 2015 James Beard Foundation Award for Special/Documentary for Food Chains. The film itself shared the 2016 BritDoc Documentary Impact Award.
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