Artistic Vision

As Covid took hold in March 2020, we knew we had to capture Ruth Reichl’s journey chronicling the food security story unfolding in real time. But, unable to travel, how would we solve the problem of distance: the miles and miles lying between her and her subjects, and the continent between her, in upstate New York, and our crew, in Los Angeles? 

Mercifully, Covid constraints turned into an unanticipated creative goldmine. 

Following the bread-crumbs to fascinating characters working on the front lines of food, Ruth began making video calls and we experimented with recording them remotely. We discovered that, instead of shutting us out or causing us to feel one step removed, the two-way exchanges became kinetic dialogues that offered something new and fertile. Liberated from the traditional one-way documentary interview format, these conversations immersed the viewer in an encounter between two characters. The screen Ruth and her conversation partners shared became a confidential chamber where vulnerability, spontaneity, and learning could all play out. As we cut the film, we began to see the zoom calls as a kind of “virtual verite;” and we allowed them to act as scenes unto themselves. 

Ruth’s reporting instincts, irrepressible curiosity, and unparalleled knowledge of food culture deepen and elevate the calls, while her warmth evokes poignant honesty from our characters. Because the meetings are scheduled right after major events–such as urgent pieces of pandemic news or shifts in the subject’s story–there’s a palpable sense of immediacy that drives the narrative forward. 

Of course we were also eager to break the film out of the intimate conversation chamber and into our characters’ worlds on the ground. Early in the pandemic, we shot remotely with one-to-two person local crews. Then as soon as we were able, our Los Angeles team got on the road to capture their stories in the wide open landscapes of Kansas and Nebraska, the waters of Long Island Sound, the verdant fields of Georgia and Ohio, and the urban cityscapes of New York, Oakland, and Los Angeles. 

In the interplay among characters and between two visual dimensions–the virtual video calls and the physical environments of our characters’ lives–we get a kind of 10,000 foot view of a reeling food ecosystem. A tapestry of America made up of individual stories. 

Like a fulcrum, Ruth pivots us from character to character as their dramas build beat by beat, and the larger systemic picture comes into focus. At the same time, the film interweaves Ruth’s personal journey as an arbiter and shaper of American food culture. Sparked by what she is learning in the making of the film, and by virtual check-ins with her old friend, culinary pioneer Alice Waters, Ruth reflects on her choices, past and present.