triggerhappymedia

This summer Groundwork for Success scholars will learn the art of bookbinding through a project led by Brooklyn artist and food activist Marna Chester. The project entitled Eat Better Now is in its second phase and will later be developed in to a short documentary film.

Marna created the project in an effort to promote healthful eating habits in underserved communities.

“Food has a profound impact on our lives,” says Marna. “I want to offer a hands-on experience of seeking out a recipe and creating it. I see potential in this exercise to stir conversation between neighbors and to tap into a shared history.”

Groundwork families, staff, and community residents are encouraged to submit recipes at each of our eight program sites. The handwritten recipe consists of up to six healthy ingredients as well as personal stories and photos about the recipe’s source. The will be collected in June and used as part of the community cookbook.

Beginning in July a group of Groundwork for Success scholars will work with Marna to start hand-binding the recipes in an effort to make 75 books. Each scholar participating in the binding project will keep a copy of the cookbook. The others will be distributed at community potluck.

The project’s culminating potluck invites neighbors to be documented as they go from store to kitchen to create their recipe.

Take a look at Fly on the Wall, a brief introduction to the problem on healthy food inequity.

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Trigger: Groundwork Inc newsletter

I received a message from someone sort of amazed by the idea behind Fly on the Wall. He said, “Fighting big food with a poster is a David and Goliath story, to be sure.”

How can public art be used as a tool for change? Certainly a good question.

I like this idea by street artist JR.

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Trigger: Street Attack

A year ago, I was just a fan of this movie. Now I work directly on the outreach and distribution. I am incredibly excited for the television premiere!

Did you know that Egyptians are the world’s leaders in recycling?

Check out the story of three inspiring Egyptian young men, their community of Zaballeen, and their amazing recycling work (the Zaballeen have achieved one of the highest recycling rates in the world)!

DON’T MISS GARBAGE DREAMS’ TELEVISION PREMIERE ON INDEPENDENT LENS/ PBS Tuesday, April 27th, 2010.

Independent Lens is broadcast on most PBS stations on Tuesdays at 10 PM. Dates & times may vary! So check the broadcast schedule in your area.

Invite your friends and family to this event on Facebook!

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Trigger: Garbage Dreams official website

It’s been a busy couple of weeks! Last Monday, Marna and I were given a tour of the West Side Campaign Against Hunger. Development Director Stewart Desmond showed us the supermarket-style food pantry and a chef training lesson in action. Their clients not only learn valuable professional tools, but also how to make tasty, healthy recipes using the food available through the pantry program.

Tuesday I spent the day at Harlem Children’s Zone. Media consultant and friend Rayme Samuels organized a screening of my film, plus a discussion on editing strategies with her talented group of media students. They are currently putting together a program of pre-recorded pieces tied into a live show. I can’t wait to return and see their work.

The best part was hearing what the high school students thought about the issues raised in Fly on the Wall. What is the food situation like in their own neighborhoods? Are their lives personally effected by hunger, obesity, diabetes? Why do they think problems related to food access exist? What do they think can be done to affect change?

I captured on camera lively discussions at both the WSCAH and HCZ- more to come…

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Trigger: Fly on the Wall

Fly on the Wall
A film by Jenny Montasir

Fly on the Wall follows artist Marna Chester as she speaks with shop owners in Brooklyn neighborhoods where there is less access to healthy food. Her mission: to hang a poster she designed that promotes healthy eating. Marna’s local, grassroots effort sparks conversations that expose deeply-rooted problems within the larger food system.

Thanks so much to everyone who came out for the Hungry Filmmakers’ screening of Fly on the Wall. For their support of the film, I would especially like to thank Aaron Lubarsky, Suzanne Hillinger, and the amazing Brooklynites who invited Marna and my camera into their businesses.

After the screening, I chatted with two teachers who work in Brooklyn public schools. One told me that her students call baby carrots “teacher food”; they see their teachers bringing this healthy snack to work with them, but otherwise they are like a foreign object in the neighborhood where they live. The other spoke of a child so malnourished from only eating processed foods that his growth was severely stunted.

The problem of food access and imbalance in our communities, in New York City and beyond, is serious and urgently needs to be addressed.

My hope is that Marna’s project can be used as a tool to draw more attention to the issue and to elicit change…stay tuned.

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Trigger: Hungry Filmmakers

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Back by popular demand, the food documentary film screening and discussion event, Hungry Filmmakers, will return to Anthology Film Archives on Tuesday, February 23, 2010.

The next Hungry Filmmakers will showcase excerpts from five food conscious films:

Fresh- Ana Sofia Joanes
Mad Cow Investigator- Nancy Good
What’s On Your Plate?- Catherine Gund
The End of the Line- Rupert Murray
Fly on the Wall- Jenny Montasir

Doors open at 6:30 PM
Screenings begin at 7:00 PM

A post-screening discussion will be moderated by Kerry Trueman- editor of EatingLiberally.org A reception will follow in the theatre lobby with complimentary snacks, Lagunitas beer and wine from T Edwards. BYOC (bring your own cup) strongly encouraged if you wish to have a drink.

Tickets are $15 at the door and in advance. Visit Brown Paper Tickets to purchase online.

Hungry Filmmakers is a not-for-profit event hosted by Shelley Rogers, Cathy Erway, Jimmy’s No. 43 and Tim Lynch. Proceeds will be donated to the nonprofit organization Just Food, which works to promote access of fresh, seasonal, sustainable grown food for all New York City residents.

Hope to see you there!
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Trigger: Hungry Filmmakers

and I’ve been up to…

…post-production for a documentary that will air on the History Channel. That’s all I can say for now. But the subject is amazing and I am incredibly excited about it!

… directing my own short documentary. I was given the opportunity to film (with a Flip MinoHD, the smallest HD camera available- it’s the size of an iPod) right here in Brooklyn. I will be editing it over the next few weeks, and hope to have something to show soon.

…working at the Food Bank For New York City. Approximately four million New Yorkers experience difficulty affording food, and the Food Bank’s soup kitchens and pantries serve 1.3 million-pretty staggering numbers.

In some triggerhappymedia-type news, the world’s oldest Sunday newspaper, The Observer, may be closing with speculation that it will be replaced by a mid-week magazine. As magazines stateside are faltering or failing, it’s interesting that Guardian News and Media would go that route.

In the meantime, I expressed my love for the current Observer Magazine (tucked away in every Sunday edition) to my friend who arrives today from London. She has been collecting them for me week by week in case they are, in fact, the best of the last.

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Trigger: Guardian Media admits The Observer may be closed

I’m so excited and proud- tonight is the press event for the The Alzheimer’s Project documentary! This will include an advanced screening of “Momentum in Science” (the third part of the four-part series) followed by a panel discussion with a few of the doctors featured in the film.

The Alzheimer’s Project will begin airing on HBO on Sunday, May 10th at 9PM.  Free online streaming of the entire program will also be made available to reach as many people as possible.

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Trigger: HBO Documentaries: The Alzheimer’s Project Homepage

Garbage Dreams follows three teenage boys born into the trash trade and growing up in the worlds largest garbage village, on the outskirts of Cairo. It is the home to 60,000 Zaballeen (or Zabbaleen), Egypt’s “garbage people.”

When their community is suddenly faced with the globalization of its trade, each of the teenage boys is forced to make choices that will impact his future and the survival of his community.

Filmmaker Mai Iskander made excellent character choices to tell the story of the Zaballeen. Sixteen year-old Osama (”I feel inferior in people’s eyes”) is especially compelling. He is not the type of documentary character who reveals dark secrets, or gets caught in private moments. Osama takes his role in the film very seriously. He seems to believe without question that there should be cameras on him documenting his life. For me, Osama provided both the most entertaining and the most heartbreaking moments of the film.

In her director’s statement, Iskander acknowledges how Osama inspired her to make Garbage Dreams:

“In 2005, I returned to [the garbage city on the outskirts of Cairo] and volunteered to help paint a mural at the Recycling School. I filmed a few of the students- applying vibrant colors and making whimsical pictures on a drab concrete wall- thinking that I could cut together a little film about their mural as a present for them.

And in front of the camera, they blossomed. They were uninhibited and really pleased that an “outsider” took such interest in them…One of the boys, Osama, started bragging that an “international film crew” (in actuality it was just me) was following him to document his incredibly charismatic self. Neighbors and friends started calling him ‘Tommy Cruise.’”

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Trigger: Garbage Dreams official site