In my inbox.

-JAY

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Hi Jason,

I wanted to let you know about a couple food-related films that will be playing soon at the West End Cinema.
The first is FARMAGEDDON, which will open tomorrow and play through June 23rd. The film explores the restrictions placed on a number of foods, such as raw milk, and the effect these have on family farms and American’s access to foods they wish to eat. Director Kristin Canty will be holding Q&As all weekend at the theater.

The other film is TOAST, based on the childhood of British food writer Nigel Slater and starring Helena Bonham Carter, which is part of our FROM BRITAIN WITH LOVE series. It will screen Wednesday, June 22nd at 7:30pm. I’m including longer synopses of both films below — please let me know if you’d like any more info about either of them.

Thanks,
Johanna

FARMAGEDDON
Americans’ right to access fresh, healthy foods of their choice is under attack. Farmageddon tells the story of small, family farms that were providing safe, healthy foods to their communities and were forced to stop, sometimes through violent action, by agents of misguided government bureaucracies, and seeks to figure out why.

Filmmaker Kristin Canty’s quest to find healthy food for her four children turned into an educational journey to discover why access to these foods was being threatened. What she found were policies that favor agribusiness and factory farms over small family-operated farms selling fresh foods to their communities. Instead of focusing on the source of food safety problems — most often the industrial food chain — policymakers and regulators implement and enforce solutions that target and often drive out of business small farms that have proven themselves more than capable of producing safe, healthy food, but buckle under the crushing weight of government regulations and excessive enforcement actions.

Farmageddon highlights the urgency of food freedom, encouraging farmers and consumers alike to take action to preserve individuals’ rights to access food of their choice and farmers’ rights to produce these foods safely and free from unreasonably burdensome regulations. The film serves to put policymakers and regulators on notice that there is a growing movement of people aware that their freedom to choose the foods they want is in danger, a movement that is taking action with its dollars and its voting power to protect and preserve the dwindling number of family farms that are struggling to survive.

90 min. · Not Rated · Dir. Kristin Canty

TOAST
TOAST is the ultimate nostalgia trip through everything edible in 1960’s Britain. Based on the heart-wrenchingly bittersweet story of food writer, Nigel Slater’s childhood, and set to the songs of Dusty Springfield, TOAST is a delicious love letter to the tastes and smells that a young boy associates with his journey into adulthood.
Nigel’s Mother was always a poor cook but her chronic asthma and addiction to all things canned isn’t helping. No ordinary boy, Nigel on the other hand, laps up cookbooks like they are porn, spending all his time gazing longingly at the delights on offer in Percy Salt’s grocers. Nigel’s Dad worries that there is something “wrong” with his son and the two find it difficult to connect. Nigel finds it far easier relating to Josh, the gardener, who teaches Nigel about the wonders of nature as they sit munching freshly picked radishes and pork pies.

As his mother’s illness worsens so to do Nigel’s relations with his father. The Bolognese he cooks is far too exotic; the uncooked Fray Bentos pie MUST be finished; and his father’s rage as Nigel insists on picking every last bit of jelly off the tinned ham at the annual picnic hits an all time high. Dad then fires Josh for reasons unknown to Nigel.
Just before Christmas, Nigel’s mother dies, leaving Nigel and his father heartbroken. Their touching efforts to look after each other, often through gestures with food, sadly seem to miss the target and his father begins to spend his evenings at the Masonic lodge until a new cleaner, Mrs Potter, arrives on the scene.
Mrs Potter’s curves, charms and lemon meringue pies quickly bewitch Nigel’s father and much to Nigel’s horror, the three soon embark on a move to the country. The one silver lining in the cloud of a new school is Domestic Science class, where Nigel can finally shine and cooking soon becomes the key weapon in the battle for Dad’s affections. Ironically, the main casualty of these culinary skirmishes is Nigel’s father, as his waistline grows and grows as Mrs Potter’s cooking turns competitive.

Hoping to escape the madness, Nigel lands a job in the kitchen of his local pub. It is here that Nigel’s eyes are opened to a world of opportunity, both culinary and sexually. He is soon smitten with both the owner’s son and his cooking.

When his father dies, Nigel’s mind is set as he escapes the confines of the countryside and packs a bag for London, arriving at the door of The Savoy Hotel.

96 min. • Not Rated • Dir. SJ Clarkson