Andrew Beck Grace, director, filmmaker, and producer of the critically acclaimed documentary “Eating Alabama,” will screen his award-winning film on Tuesday at 6 p.m. in the Frierson Theatre at GPS. The public is invited, and there is no charge.
Mr. Grace and his wife, in search of a simpler life, returned to their home state of Alabama and set out to eat the way their grandparents did – locally and seasonally. “Growing up on my granddaddy’s stories, I really thought, rather naively, that all these farmers were just out there but didn’t know how to get their product to us,” Mr. Grace says.
But as they navigated the agricultural industrial complex, they soon realized that nearly everything about the food system has changed since farmers once populated their own personal family histories. A thoughtful and often funny essay on community, the south, and sustainability, “Eating Alabama” is a story about why food matters. “I hope people get a sense of how difficult farmers have it and how hard they work,” Mr. Grace says, “and that they will try to make choices—even small ones—that will lead to change.”
Mr. Grace is a past fellow at the CPB/PBS Producers Academy and directs the Documenting Justice program at the University of Alabama.
The film premiered at the prestigious South by Southwest film festival in Austin, Tx., and has been an official selection of film festivals in New Orleans and Napa Valley; it has been screened at the Environmental Film Festival at Yale University and at the Santa Fe Independent festival. Named the Best Alabama Feature at the Sidewalk Film Festival, “Eating Alabama” also received top honors at the Indie Grits festival in South Carolina. It will air on PBS in July.