Tag: movie

A Filmmaker’s Food Waste Story

  • Jeremy Seifert produced the Dive!, a film about food waste and how much of it is actually useful. (Photo courtesy of Dive! The Film)

A film about food waste is catching attention and awards at independent film festivals across the country.

The film’s called “Dive!,” and reviewers are shocked by the film’s statistics about how much edible food that grocery stores toss into dumpsters.
Shawn Allee reports the reviewers are also enthralled by the filmmaker’s personal story about diving after that food.

Transcript

A film about food waste is catching attention and awards at independent film festivals across the country.

The film’s called “Dive!,” and reviewers are shocked by the film’s statistics about how much edible food that grocery stores toss into dumpsters.

Shawn Allee reports the reviewers are also enthralled by the filmmaker’s personal story about diving after that food.

Jeremy Seifert didn’t start dumpster diving to make a film.

A few years ago, friends turned him onto it.
One morning, they surprised him with bags of food pulled from a dumpster.

“And so my entire kitchen floor was covered with meat and salads and I was filled with delight and wonder and I just said, “where do we begin?”

Seifert says he dumpster dived for kicks, but that changed.
Seifert is a filmmaker by trade, and he got a filming assignment at a refugee camp in Uganda.
The kids in the camp had hardly any food.

“They were truly hungry and suffering from hunger. And I came back home and two nights later, I was on my way to a dumpster pulling out a carload of food that had been thrown away. That experience filled me with such outrage, that I felt I needed to do something and my expression was to make a film.”

Seifert’s film picks up after his dumpster diving takes this kind of political turn.
It’s not for kicks anymore; he wants to show our food waste problem is so bad, that his family could practically live off food from grocery stores dumpsters.
He gets advice from experienced divers.

“Rule number one. Never take more than you need unless you find it a good home.”

But, Seifert runs into trouble with this rule.
He can’t let food go …

“I’m tired of it, there’s too much. I only took this much because there’s so much going to waste. It’s almost two in the morning, and I don’t have anywhere to put it, really.
I had to save as much of it as I could. In just a week of nightly diving, we had a year’s supply of meat.”

Guilt wasn’t his only problem.
His wife, Jen, explains a practical one.

“The dumpster stuff is really great. but because there’s such a large quantity of it, it can turn to a lot of work. So there’s like 12 packages of strawberries that I need to wash and freeze and cut. It’s not that big of a deal, but it’s just a lot more work than going to the grocery store and picking up just what you need.”

Seifert says the biggest problem with dumpster diving, was that it changed how he felt about food. One morning, he talked to his young son about it and kept the camera rolling …

“I don’t know if dumpster diving and eating food from the dumpster has made me value food more or value food less because it’s easier now to throw food away because we have so much of it. Part of me, I think I’m valuing food even less.”

“You can’t waste food, Dad.”

“I know, I don’t want to waste food. Do you want to waste food?”

“No.”

“I don’t want to waste food, either.”

Seifert tells me that this scene at the breakfast table haunted him, because maybe he was setting a bad example for his son.

“So it was a crisis moment in my food waste dumpster diving adventures. And so by the time the film was over, I was so tired of food and thinking about food.”

Well, Seifert’s had to keep thinking about food.

His film’s at festivals, and he helps activists get grocery stores to donate to food banks.
But things have changed at Seifert’s house.

He doesn’t dumpster dive so much – instead, he’s started a garden.
That way, his boy can really value what makes it to the dinner table.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Lake Huron’s Invasive Species

  • Filmmaker John Schmit says he wanted to make this film to show how even the smallest invader could mess up the delicate balance of life in the lake. (Photo courtesy of the NOAA GLERL)

You might call Lake Huron the forgotten Great Lake. There are no major cities on its shores. It doesn’t get the media attention the other four Great Lakes do. But its problems are just as bad or worse. Rebecca Williams reports a new documentary tells the story of Lake Huron’s struggle with dozens of alien invaders… and the biologists and fishermen who are trying to reclaim their lake:

Transcript

You might call Lake Huron the forgotten Great Lake. There are no major cities on its shores. It doesn’t get the media attention the other four Great Lakes do. But its problems are just as bad or worse. Rebecca Williams reports a new documentary tells the story of Lake Huron’s struggle with dozens of alien invaders… and the biologists and fishermen who are trying to reclaim their lake:

The documentary Lake Invaders is a cautionary tale about opening the door to strangers. It tells how Lake Huron was opened up to alien invasive species. The film paints fish biologists as the heroes rushing in.

“Seems like it always has to wait until it’s at a disaster level before you know, we can start fixing it… we’re constantly putting out these biological fires, running from fire to fire, to try to keep them under control. We have to find another way to approach this.”

More than 180 non-native species have gotten into the Lakes… and some of them have turned everything upside down. Long, slithering, blood-sucking parasites called sea lamprey were the first to get in. They slipped through a canal that connects the Atlantic Ocean and the Great Lakes. Lamprey killed off most of the big predator fish in the Lakes.

Then… came the alewife. Since the lamprey had taken out the top predators… there was nothing to eat the invading alewives. In the film… biologist Jeff Schaeffer explains how the small fish took over the lakes.

“At that time over 90% of the fish biomass of Lake Michigan and Lake Huron was probably dominated by the exotic alewife. One of my colleagues refers to the Great Lakes at that time as alewife soup.”

Suddenly… there was a major stinking mess. Each spring, hundreds of millions of dead alewives washed up on shore and rotted. Not the best thing for tourism.

Filmmaker John Schmit says he was surprised to learn what happened to the lakes next.

“The funny thing about the Great Lakes is there’s Pacific salmon in them.”

Schmit says biologists brought in millions of salmon from the Northwest to control the alewives. The crazy thing is… it worked. In the film we see how a 4 billion dollar sport fishing industry was born. And the native fish of Lake Huron were pretty much forgotten about.

The salmon fishery boomed for decades. Until the alewives crashed in 2003.

Fisher Doug Niergarth says then… the salmon started starving.

“Two years ago we saw some monster salmon heads that were sitting on little dwarfed bodies. And it was the ugliest thing and rather nasty. Just skinny and withered away. It was the nastiest thing you ever done seen.”

The fishing industry started slipping away. Marinas just scraped by. Tackle shops and motels closed. People finally realized there was something wrong with the lakes.

John Schmit says he wanted to make this film to show how even the smallest invader could mess up everything… both the delicate balance of life in the lake and the people who fish it and depend on money from tourism.

“Lake Huron has been the most impacted by the newest invaders. My personal concern, my investment in the Great Lakes and making this documentary is for people to be aware of the kind of damage invasive species can do to these huge lake systems.”

He says his film Lake Invaders is an example of what invasive creatures can do… not just to Lake Huron… but any ecosystem.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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A Look Into Coal Country

  • The filmmakers want more Americans to understand that when we flick on a light switch – it is not a meaningless act. It takes electricity. And that takes coal. (Photo courtesy of Coal Country)

When the Senate picks up debate
on the climate change bill, it
will be – in part – deciding the
future of coal as an energy source
in the U.S. About half the nation’s
electricity currently comes from
coal. And a lot of it comes from
the Appalachian region. A new
documentary film sets out to show
how mining for coal affects the people
who live in Coal Country. Julie Grant
spoke with the film’s producers:

Transcript

When the Senate picks up debate
on the climate change bill, it
will be – in part – deciding the
future of coal as an energy source
in the U.S. About half the nation’s
electricity currently comes from
coal. And a lot of it comes from
the Appalachian region. A new
documentary film sets out to show
how mining for coal affects the people
who live in Coal Country. Julie Grant
spoke with the film’s producers:

Mari-Lynn Evans and Phylis Geller set out to make the movie Coal Country
because they wanted to show how different people are affected by coal
mining.

They found lots of activists, and regular citizens, who would talk with
them. Plenty of people were willing to show the thick black water in their
toilet tanks. They wanted to show the black soot covering their cars.
They wanted to talk about the health problems they live with. And they all
blamed the coal industry.

Evans also wrote to coal supporters – to get their side of the story on
camera. The answer?

“No. That was their response. I sent out requests to the coal industry,
to coal companies and to suppliers of the coal industry.”

Evans brother is a coal miner. He supports mountain top removal.

(sound of explosions)

As we see in the movie, that’s when coal companies blow off the entire
top of a mountain to get to the coal. Many people consider it the most
polluting and environmentally devastating type of mining.

But Evans says not even her own brother would do an interview about it.

“And when I said, ‘why won’t you talk on camera? You feel so
passionately that coal is wonderful and mountaintop removal is actually for
the environment as well as the economy.’ And his response to me always
was, ‘oh I would never speak on camera without getting permission from
the company I work for.’”

The filmmakers heard that a lot. And no coal miners ever did get
permission to talk on camera.

In the movie, we do hear from Don Blankenship, head of Massey Energy. He
spoke at a public hearing about the need to ease environmental restrictions
on coal mining.

“We had nearly 800 employees up ‘til Friday. We had to lay 8 off. I
think that might be just the tip of the iceberg if we don’t our rules
changed how we mine in the state.”

Anti-coal activists at the public hearing explain how the coal companies
use that kind of intimidation to control miners.

“I think people are scared that they will lose their jobs and be flipping
burgers. You look out and that’s all you see. You see mining and
flipping burgers. And, I argue, that the coal companies want it that way.
They want that to be the only option. That’s the only way they could get
support for how they treat their workers and how they treat this land.
This would never happen in a place that wasn’t poor. Never.”

In the movie, some coal miners stand up at the public meeting to defend the
companies they work for. One explains the coal industry has provided him a
good salary.

Miner One: “For the last 14 years, the coal industry has supported myself
and my wife and my 3 children.”

Miner Two: “When the last one of you so-called environmentalists leave
the state, when the rest of us leave for North Carolina, turn out the
lights. Oh, wait a minute, there won’t be no lights. No coal, no
lights.”

(music)

The filmmakers want more Americans to understand that when we flick on a
light switch – it is not a meaningless act. It takes electricity. And
that takes coal.

And, as anti-coal activist Judy Bonds says in the movie, coal is tearing
apart West Virginia.

“It is a civil war; it’s families against families. It’s brother
against brother.”

Or – in the case of filmmaker Mari Lynn-Evans – brother against
sister.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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Food, Inc. Exposes Industry’s Secrets

  • With Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner aims to educate Americans about the realities of the food industry (Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures)

A new film documentary that’s hitting theaters now looks at the underbelly of the food industry. We’ve all heard about food recalls because of E.coli bacteria contamination. There was peanut butter, hamburger, spinach – and the list goes on. Lester Graham reports the documentary, Food Inc., looks at why food gets contaminated and reveals a lot more about our industrial approach to producing food:

Transcript

A new film documentary that’s hitting theaters now looks at the underbelly of the food industry. We’ve all heard about food recalls because of E.coli bacteria contamination. There was peanut butter, hamburger, spinach – and the list goes on. Lester Graham reports the documentary, Food Inc., looks at why food gets contaminated and reveals a lot more about our industrial approach to producing food:

This documentary is disturbing. It shows some of the things that happen to our food behind the scenes.

“There is this deliberate veil, this curtain, that’s dropped between us and where are food is coming from. The industry doesn’t want you to know the truth about what you’re eating, because if you knew, you might not want to eat it.”

The film, Food Inc., looks at how raising animals and growing crops have been industrialized from the farm to the grocery store.

Food processors have relied more and more on technological and chemical fixes to food contamination problems and storage issues instead of questioning whether the assembly line factory, mass production approach is the best way of handling food.

It looks at how companies such as Monsanto are treating farmers who want to save their seeds to replant next year – hint — involves lawyers and lawsuits.

It looks at how companies fight against labeling that would give consumers more information on packages. They say more information might unnecessarily scare their customers.

And it uses video from hidden cameras to show how animals are treated at big factory slaughterhouses.

Robert Kenner is the film’s producer/director. He thinks most people won’t like what they see.

But, he also says things can change. If people think about it, they actually vote with their forks three times a day.

“On some level, I think it’s going to be lead by moms who don’t want their children to be eating this food that’s making them sick.”

Kenner says these massive food recalls we’ve seen over the last several years are bad enough, but there’s a greater threat to our health.

“Obviously E.coli and things like that are very frightening, but ultimately it’s the everyday stuff that we don’t see – such as the sugar, salt and fat – that are making us fat. And that’s what I think needs to be changed most. That we get food that’s healthy and that we don’t subsidize food that’s making us sick.”

Food Inc. interviews farmers and food processors and some food industry critics, including author Michael Pollan.

He says those foods subsidized by the government are the kinds of ingredients that are causing some of the leading health problems, such as early onset of diabetes and heart disease.

“All those snackfood calories are the ones that come from the commodity crops – from the wheat, from the corn, and from the soybeans. By making those calories really cheap, that’s one of the reasons the biggest predictor of obesity is income level.”

Pollan says it’s wrong when it’s cheaper to buy a cheeseburger than it is to buy broccoli.

The director and producer of Food Inc., Robert Kenner says he knows the film spends a lot of time looking at the dark side.

But he also gives some of the progressive food processors and even Wal Mart credit. He says they’re doing something about meeting the consumer demand for better, safer and more healthy foods.

“There are lots of great options out there and they are growing options.”

Such as farmers markets, grocery stores letting you know if food is grown locally, and a growing selection of organic foods.

Kenner says he hopes his film, Food Inc., not only outlines the problems with how our food is handled, but gets people to start asking questions about the choices they make when it’s time to eat.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Eco-Films Debut on Festival Circuit

  • Environmentally-themed movies are hitting the festival circuit hard (Source: Sailko at Wikimedia Commons)

If you think Al Gore’s movie, ‘An
Inconvenient Truth,’ is one of the only
environmental films out there, think again.
There are so many movies about the environment
that entire festivals have been created to
showcase them. Jennifer Guerra has more:

Transcript

If you think Al Gore’s movie, ‘An
Inconvenient Truth,’ is one of the only
environmental films out there, think again.
There are so many movies about the environment
that entire festivals have been created to
showcase them. Jennifer Guerra
has more:

Science films have come a long way from this.

(sound of old science film)

Now, they’ve got flashy trailers, famous narrators and edgy music. There are hundreds of
these environmentally-themed movies and they’re hitting the festival circuit hard. Korea,
Italy, Israel, DC, Colorado, Michigan.

Susan Woods got to choose which movies to include in Michigan’s first ever Green on
the Big Screen film festival.

“It was quite daunting in the beginning, to tell you the truth, when I started looking
up all these films. I thought oh my goodness, how can I select them. There’s too
many to select.”

She eventually settled on about 30 films, including King Corn. Curt Ellis produced the
documentary, which is all about – yup, you guess it – corn and our dependence on it for
almost everything we eat.

(sound from movie)

“When you’re telling a story about the natural world, you really have to be able to
transport people to the place you’re talking about.”

And Ellis thinks the best way to do that – short of lecturing people in a cornfield in the
middle of Iowa – is to show them a film.

“The reason we make documentaries – Lord knows it’s not for the profit – the
reason we make film is because we believe film can make a difference.”

“My opinion of media effects in terms of film actually producing social action is
pretty limited.”

That’s Daniel Herbert. He teaches film at the University of Michigan. You could say he’s
got a healthy amount of skepticism when it comes to films’ impact on environmental
change.

“Unless you have policies in your city government without recycling, what does it
matter if you’ve watched An Inconvenient Truth? If Al Gore’s telling you to buy
$30 light bulbs and you make 9 bucks at Starbucks, what’s it matter?”

Plus he says you run the risk of having audiences think that just because they watched the
film they’ve somehow participated in solving the problem.

That said, if he had to choose between showing an environmental film at a festival, a
commercial movie theater or on TV? Herbert says he’d pick the festival. Sure, there’s
probably a greater audience to be had with television, and it’s a little more convenient to
just Netflix the film and watch it from home, but you lose something that way.

Susan Woods – she’s from the Michigan film festival – she says a festival can provide a
whole different experience.

“The difference is that these people are sitting home in a dark room as opposed to
being with a group of people who have the same mind set. And I think that’s the big
difference.”

And, she says, at a festival, if you feel inspired by one of the films, you can go up to a
director afterward and ask questions, or talk with a climate change expert about solutions
or sign up with a local environmental group.

Something you definitely wouldn’t be able to do sitting at home alone in the dark with
your TV.

For The Environment Report, I’m Jennifer Guerra.

Related Links

Imax Movie Highlights Great Lakes

  • "Mysteries of the Great Lakes" is an IMAX film highlighting the threats to Great Lakes wildlife (Photo by Lester Graham)

There’s a new IMAX film about the threats to wildlife around the Great Lakes. Chuck Quirmbach has more:

Transcript

There’s a new IMAX film about the threats to wildlife around the Great Lakes. Chuck Quirmbach has more:

The film “Mysteries of the Great Lakes” highlights some less commonly known stories, like that of the massive fish known as the lake sturgeon. Biologists are trying to bring the threatened fish back to healthy numbers.

Ron Bruch is a key figure in the new movie. Here, he discusses a 120 year old female sturgeon he’s seen numerous times on spawning runs.

“I’ve gone through this ritual eight times with this fish, and each time I wonder if it’ll be the last. But she’s a survivor and maybe 50 years from now, she’ll come up this river looking for me, and I’ll be gone.”

The film also looks at possible health risks to bald eagles, and what invasive species are doing to native wildlife.

“Mysteries of the Great Lakes” has started its run in several U.S. and Canadian cities.

For The Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

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Al Gore Movie: Hot!

Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth” is reportedly drawing steady crowds at theatres in many parts of the U.S. But the film about global warming is bringing out both believers and skeptics. The GLRC’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

Al Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth, is reportedly drawing steady
crowds at theaters in many parts of the US. But the film about
global warming is bringing out both believers and skeptics.
The GLRC’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:


An Inconvenient Truth is the kind of movie that seems to provoke
discussion and debate. Liberal and conservative talk shows, bloggers
and pundits are duking it out. Sometimes the debate is within the
same household. Chun Yuan says after seeing the
movie and learning about all the carbon emissions, he’ll keep a closer
eye on his home’s thermostat.


“…Try to be more aware of like adjusting the heater….(laughs) ”


But Yuan’s wife, Yaphen Chen says An Inconvenient Truth
sometimes seems more like a lecture than entertainment. She says the
movie might help Al Gore as much as the environment.


“I think American people adore movie stars, so maybe this will help Al
Gore get elected. (laughs)”


Gore denies he’s trying to use An Inconvenient Truth to revive his
political career.


For the GLRC, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

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Ten Threats: The Earliest Invader

  • A bridge for a river... this portion of the Erie Canal crossed the Genesee River via an aqueduct in Rochester, NY. This photo was taken around 1914. (From the collection of the Rochester Public Library Local History Division)

The Ten Threats to the Great Lakes” is looking first at alien invasive species. There are more than 160 non-native species in the Great Lakes basin. If they do environmental or economic harm, they’re called invasive species. There are estimates that invasive species cost the region billions of dollars a year. Different species got here different ways. David Sommerstein tells us how some of the region’s earliest invaders got into the Lakes:

Transcript

We’re bringing you an extensive series on Ten Threats to the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham is guiding us through the reports:


“The Ten Threats to the Great Lakes” is looking first at alien invasive species. There are more than 160 non-native species in the Great Lakes basin. If they do environmental or economic harm, they’re called invasive species. There are estimates that invasive species cost the region billions of dollars a year. Different species got here different ways. David Sommerstein tells us how some of the region’s earliest invaders got into the Lakes:


If the history of invasive species were a movie, it would open like this:


(Sound of banjo)


It’s 1825. Politicians have just ridden the first ship across the newly dug Erie Canal from Buffalo to New York.


(Sound of “The Erie Canal”)


“I’ve got an old mule, and her name is Sal. Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal…”


Chuck O’Neill is an invasive species expert with New York Sea Grant.


“At the canal’s formal opening, Governor DeWitt Clinton dumped a cask of Lake Erie water; he dumped that water into New York Harbor.”


Meanwhile, in Buffalo, a cask of Hudson River water was triumphantly poured into Lake Erie.


“In a movie, that would be the flashback with the impending doom-type music in the background.”


(Sound of ominous music)


It was an engineering and economic milestone, but a danger lurked. For the first time since glaciers carved the landscape twelve thousand years ago, water from the Hudson and water from the Great Lakes mixed.


(Sound of “Dragnet” theme)


Enter the villain: the sea lamprey. It’s a slimy, snake-like parasite in the Atlantic Ocean. It sucks the blood of host fish.


Within a decade after the Erie Canal and its network of feeders opened, the sea lamprey uses the waterways to swim into Lake Ontario. By the 1920’s and 30’s, it squirms into the upper Lakes, bypassing Niagara Falls through the Welland Canal.


What happens next is among the most notorious examples of damage done by an invasive species in the Great Lakes. By the 1950’s, the sea lamprey devastates Lake trout populations in Lake Superior. Mark Gaden is with the Great Lakes Fishery Commission.


“They changed a way of life in the Great Lakes basin, the lampreys. They preyed directly on fish, they drove commercial fisheries out of business, the communities in the areas that were built around the fisheries were impacted severely.”


The sea lamprey wasn’t the only invader that used the canals. Canal barges carried stowaway plants and animals in their hulls and ballast. In the mid-1800’s, the European faucet snail clogged water intakes across the region. The European pea clam, purple loosestrife, marsh foxtail, flowering rush – all used the canal system to enter the Great Lakes.


Chuck O’Neill says the spread of invasive species also tells the tale of human transportation.


“If you look at a map, you can pretty much say there was some kind of a right-of-way – railroad, canal, stageline – that was in those areas just by the vegetation patterns.”


Almost one hundred invasive species came to the Great Lakes this way before 1960. O’Neill says every new arrival had a cascading effect.


“Each time you add in to an ecosystem another organism that can out-compete the native organisms that evolved there, you’re gradually making that ecosystem more and more artificial, less and less stable, much more likely to be invaded by the next invader that comes along.”


(Sound of “Dragnet” theme)


The next one in the Great Lakes just might be the Asian Carp. It’s swimming up the Illinois River, headed toward Lake Michigan. Cameron Davis directs the Alliance for the Great Lakes.


“If this thing gets in, it can cause catastrophic damage to the Great Lakes, ‘cause it eats thirty, forty percent of its body weight in plankton every day, and plankton are the base of the food chain in the Great Lakes.”


The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has installed an electric barrier in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal that might stop the carp. But as long as the canals around the region remain open for shipping and recreation, it’s likely more invaders may hitch a ride or simply swim into the Great Lakes.


For the GLRC, I’m David Sommerstein.

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Penguin Movie Ties Emotions to Global Warming

  • Emperor penguins and their chicks are featured in this documentary. (Photo courtesy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

A film about penguins in Antarctica is being shown in art house theatres around the country. People who’ve seen the film are linking the destruction of the penguins’ habitat to the effects of global warming. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris McCarus reports:

Transcript

A film about penguins in Antarctica is being shown in art
house theatres around the country. People who’ve seen the film are
linking the destruction of the penguins’ habitat to the effects of global
warming. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris McCarus reports.


(Sound of music from the film)


The film March of the Penguins shows the birds at their cutest. Emperor penguins cradle their babies between their legs. They slide on their bellies on the ice. And they seem to kiss like people.


Joe Hawkey is a seventeen-year-old who saw a screening of the movie. He says our energy consumption is endangering penguins and other Antarctic wildlife. But, he says, it’s clear to him that people can do things to help.


“Turn off your lights. Unplug your tv. There’s lots of things you can do. So much pollution, especially with like, automobiles I think a lot more people should try and give their bikes a chance. Even walking. Cause even… help the environment. It’d be healthy for you too you know.”


The March of the Penguins film is based more on emotions than facts. But this approach might also have more impact on the audience.


For the GLRC, I’m Chris McCarus.

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Moviemaker Lampoons Sprawl

  • Characters in the upcoming film Barn Red. Ernest Borgnine plays a farmer, who's struggling to keep his 240-acre fruit farm in the face of development pressures.

People worried about land-use issues usually don’t laugh about them. But a Michigan filmmaker has made a romantic comedy about development pressures on America’s farmland. Director Rich Brauer hopes the humor of his movie “Barn Red” will make the issue more accessible for the general public. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Peter Payette reports:

Transcript

People worried about land-use issues usually don’t laugh about them. But a
Michigan filmmaker has made a romantic comedy about development pressures
on America’s farmland. Director Rich Brauer hopes the humor of his movie
“Barn Red” will make the issue more accessible for the general public. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Peter Payette reports:


You might call Micheal Bollini puzzled at the beginning of the movie, “Barn
Red.”


The old fruit farmer played by actor Ernest Borgnine is a picture of rugged self-
reliance. But he’s bewildered by the pressure he’s under to get out of farming.


“Did you ever get that feeling that you’re going too fast and you pass a police car
and he’s got his radar at you. That’s how I feel when they talk about selling the
farm and everything. It gives me butterflies in my stomach. Terrible.”


Bollini can’t comprehend developer Paul Haight, played by actor Wayne David
Parker. In their first meeting, Haight tells Bollini he figures Bollini has to sell his
farm. Haight wants to build a subdivision there called Oak Wind. In a
conversation with his assistant, Haight calls Bollini’s 240- acre family farm a
bonanza.


HAIGHT: “So you go in here, drive up this way, turn here and your home.”


ASSISTANT: “Oak Winds is a good name. Bollini has a ton of oaks up there.”


HAIGHT: “Actually we’ll cut those down and plant this… it’s a
juniperous…something. They grow faster and there’s no leaves, no messy yards,
no leaves to clean up. So they’re perfect, no lousy squirrels.”


He goes onto say they’ll plant purple loosestrife for ground cover in Oak Wind.
Purple loosestrife is an invasive species that chokes out other the naturally
occurring plants.


Haight can’t figure out why loosestrife is so cheap.


A lot of the humor in “Barn Red” lampoons characters with their own lack of
understanding.


Bollini, the farmer, doesn’t open letters from the IRS that say he owes hundreds
of thousand of dollars in estate taxes.


Haight, The developer, gets poison ivy while trespassing on Bollini’s property.


In this scene a woman notices him scratching himself.


WOMAN: “Look’s like a pretty nasty rash you got there.”


HAIGHT: “I don’t know what the heck it is. I’m doing all I can not to scratch it,
but it seems to be spreading.”


WOMAN: “Looks like poison ivy to me. Good thing you put that pink stuff on
it.”


HAIGHT: “Oh, yeah, I sure hope it clears it up. I don’t know where I could have
gotten it at.”


The Filmmaker, Rich Brauer, says he made his movie entertaining so people will
pay attention to an issue he cares about.


Brauer lives in a rural part of northern Michigan. The region is under as much
development pressure as just about any place in the Midwest.


And Brauer’s been involved with land-use issues for years. He says he didn’t
have to invent the antics of the developer from scratch. He just had to tell about
some of the things he’s seen.


“I’ve seen these guys and I thought they were kidding. But they weren’t. Therein
lies comedy. So all I did…I just sort of created a character that echoed what I
had experienced in real life…This isn’t just completely off of a blank sheet of
paper…I was inspired by reality.”


The developer isn’t the butt of every joke.


In one scene the township clerk gets out their master plan to show to a friend of
Bollinis. She tells how it cost the township 150 thousand dollars and then the
plan just sat on the shelf for last five years.


People unfamiliar with planning and zoning might miss the sarcasm here.


But Larry Mawby didn’t. Mawby owns a vineyard in the township where “Barn
Red” was filmed. He’s been involved in local government there for twenty years.
Mawby says the county put together a state-of-the-art master plan in the mid-90s.
Mawby says people came from other parts of the state to see what they had done.


“That master plan has been totally and completely ignored. The Board of
Commissioners doesn’t pay attention to that master plan at all. Where they’re
citing the jail is contrary to their master plan. None of their facilities questions
have they ever looked at that master plan or paid attention to it. It’s like, what’s
the point here?”


The point of laughing about it in a movie may be to get everybody to lighten up.


Glenn Chown is the executive director of the Grand Traverse Regional Land
Conservancy.


Brauer consulted with Chown while writing the script for his movie.


Chown thinks the levity of “Barn Red” will help the image of environmentalists.


“Sometimes we can be accused of being all gloom and doom. And the sky is
falling and it’s all falling apart and we’re all doomed. And I think we need to
lighten up a little bit. If we do lighten up a little bit, we’ll reach people more
effectively.


But… the film ends with a little gloom and doom.


Between the end of the movie and the credits a figure from the American
Farmland Trust appears on the screen. It says America loses more than 1.2
million acres of farmland to sprawl each year.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Peter Payette.

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