Telling the stories of the most storied place

York Mini Festival This Week

Media and Documentary Projects and the Southern Foodways Alliance, two institutes of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, will present Three Recent Foodways Films by Joe York on Thursday, October 20 at noon in Paul B. Johnson Commons on the University of Mississippi campus. The event is free […]

Joe York Profiled

Joe York is featured in this month’s Garden and Gun magazine.  The article includes a link to Joe’s SFA films and also a photo of the recently deceased schwagon–the car that Joe logged some 40,000 mile in over the last two years while he made all these films.

More Pork from York

Last weekend Joe York premiered his latest film at the Big Apple BBQ Block Party in New York. “To Live and Die in Avoyelles Parish” documents the thriving cochon de lait tradition near Mansura, Louisiana. This film is part of a larger project MDP is producing with the Southern Foodways Alliance called “Southern Food: The […]

Cut/Chop/Cook is "Sizzling"

A very nice notice of Cut/Chop/Cook on the Sizzle on the Grill blog where they ask and answer: “What is REAL barbeque? – This.” The blog goes on to say “The University of Mississippi’s Media & Documentary Projects Center & the Southern Foodways Alliance created this video profile of Rodney Scott, a second generation owner/operator […]

SST in the NYT!

Congrats to Tyler Keith, Eric Griffis, and Meghan Leonard–Southern Studies grad. students whose film on the Brown Family Dairy was featured in the New York Times today with a wonderful article on the Brown family.  This film came out of the Documentary Fieldwork class that we taught last spring with David Wharton at the Center […]

Blessing of the Fleet

In February, the UM Media & Documentary Projects Center and the Southern Foodways Alliance began work on a year-long project. The result will be a feature-length documentary film “Southern Food: The Movie.” Joe York, who is directing the film, recently returned from a two-week turn along the Gulf Coast where he filmed contestants at the […]

Documenting Our Backyard

Here is a Jackson Free Press review of “Smokes and Ears” that came out just before the Crossroads Film Festival–where it won the Best Mississippi Film award. This review sums up the Mission of the Media and Documentary Projects Center about as well as anything I could write. In a Pig’s Ear By Bret Kenyon […]

Congrats to Joe York

Congratulations to Joe York whose “Smokes and Ears” took home the Ruma Award at the Crossroads Film Festival.  The award, designed by artist Wyatt Waters honors the best Mississippi film. Joe has had quite a run this last month with screenings of films in California, Arkansas, Mississippi, Georgia, and upcoming in New Zealand.  Joe is also featured […]

CUD goes Down Under!

CUD, a short film by MDP producer/director Joe York about Georgia cattleman Will Harris, is now an official selection of the Reel Earth Film Fetsival in…..NEW ZEALAND! And that’s not all! This weekend CUD will screen at the Going Green Film Festival in Los Angeles, where it is nominated for the Chipotle Food that Matters […]

CUT/CHOP/COOK "debuts" at Charleston Food & Wine Festival

On March 6th, MDP & the Southern Foodways Alliance gave folks at the Charleston Food & Wine Festival a sneak peek at their latest short documentary. The film CUT/CHOP/COOK, a profile of pitmaster Rodney Scott of Scott’s Barbecue in Hemingway, South Carolina, was produced and directed by MDP’s Joe York in association with the Union […]

CUD goes to Hollywood

CUD, a co-production by MDP & the Southern Foodways Alliance, will screen in Hollywood at the upcoming Going Green Film Festival on April 2&3. One of only thirty films chosen for the festival, CUD is a short documentary film by Joe York which profiles of Georgia cattleman Will Harris. To learn more about the festival, […]

MDP Films to be featured at Ozark Foothills Film Festival

Earlier this year MDP  & our co-producers at the Southern Foodways Alliance were invited by the Ozark Foothills Film Festival to present four films at the festival, which runs from March 26-28 in Batesville, Arkansas. Here’s the write-up in the event from festival director Bob Pest: “New collaborators also include the UM Media & Documentary […]

CUD chews its way into Atlanta Film Fest

CUD, a short film by MDP producer Joe York, is an official selection of the Atlanta Film Festival! CUD profiles catlleman Will Harris of White Oaks Pastures in Early County, Georgia. Watch the trailer for the film above or check out the film at the Landmark Art Cinemas in midtown Atlanta during the Atlanta Film […]

Warren Belasco on Why We Study Food

Recently Warren Belasco, Professor of American Studies at the University of Maryland, was on campus for the Viking Range Lecture sponsored by the Southern Foodways Alliance.   The Media and Documentary Projects Center was there to record the lecture and our Southern Studies graduate assistant Xaris Martinez edited the lecture for broadcast.  Nicely done Xaris!

Covering the Campus

In addition to our own documentary work and working with student filmmakers, the Media and Documentary Projects Center helps produce and record campus events.  October has been an especially busy month (and we haven’t even gotten to the Southern Foodways Alliance Symposium yet!). Above: Matthew Graves tests out the system in advance of the M-Club […]

CUD

Last Saturday, Joe York’s documentary “CUD” screened in Athens, Georgia, at the Potlikker Film Festival hosted by the Southern Foodways Alliance. The film profiles Will Harris, a cattleman from Bluffton, Gerogia, who raises grass-fed beef cattle at White Oak Pastures, the expansive farm that has been in his family for over 160 years. This film […]

John T. is Splendid

John T. Edge was in booth yesterday recording an interview with American Public Media’s The Splendid Table.   The conversation was about the influence of food writer and Craig Claiborne.  Thanks to the modern miracle of ISDN lines we are able to connect live with any studio in the world.

If You Feed Them, They Will Come

  This last Friday, Matthew Graves showed his film “Feeding the Soul at Jones Valley Urban Farm” for a panel discussion on sustainable agriculture for Green Week. Liz Stagg, one of the panelist who’s spearheading the new Oxford Community Garden said that the film was one of the major inspirations for creating the garden in Oxford and […]

Going Whole Hog in North Carolina

This past week MDP producer Joe York traveled to eastern North Carolina where he shot a short documentary about the Skylight Inn in Ayden, NC. Pictured to the left, the Skylight Inn was named the “BBQ Capitol of the World” in 1979 by National Geographic Magazine. The Jones family, who have been cooking eastern North […]

Feeding The Soul at Jones Valley Urban Farm

In the heart of downtown Birmingham, Alabama lives a small three acre block where big things are happening. Feeding the Soul takes a brief look at the Jones Valley Urban Farm and highlights some of the incredible ways that this small farm is not only giving back to the city of Birmingham but is setting […]

The Rise of Southern Cheese

The Rise of Southern Cheese from The UM Media and Documentary Project Center. Artisanal cheeses have been enjoyed and celebrated all over the world. The rich tradition and lore of the cheesemaker has found its way to places where artisanal cheese is not the first thing that comes to mind: the american south. The Rise […]

Buttermilk: It Can Help

Can buttermilk solve the world’s problems? According to Earl Cruze, a dairy farmer and buttermilk maker from Knoxville, Tennessee, “it can help.” (2008)

Working the Miles

Apalachicola Bay on Florida’s so-called Forgotten Coast is world-renowned for its enormous Gulf oysters. This short documentary follows Johnny and Janice Richards, and oysterman and his wife, a shucker, through one day working the area of the Apalachicola Bay known as “The Miles”. (2006)

Hot Chicken

Prince’s Hot Chicken in Nashville, Tennessee, is half-heaven, half-hell. The chicken that comes out of the kitchen is hotter than fried magma, but for the masochists who eat it day in and day out, going to Prince’s is more than a dare, it’s a way of life.

Mutton: The Movie

“Mutton: The Movie” takes you on a magical journey to the northwestern corner of Kentucky (Owensboro to be exact) where the descendants of the Welsh who settled the banks of the Ohio River don’t count sheep, they barbecue them.

Whole Hog

Whole hog is a paean to the barbecue pitmasters, hog farmers, and butchers of rural western Tennessee, who everyday transform the lowly hog into the edible embodiment of two of the greatest human virtues, patience and hard work. (2006)

Marsaw

Martin Sawyer tended bar in the French Quarter for over 50 years. As a child he witnessed the flood of 1927 and as an octagenarian he fled his native New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina took aim. In this short profile, Mr. Sawyer talks about his time behind the bar and his memories of the Cresenct […]