"Smokes & Ears" to screen at New York Food Film Festival

Smokes & Ears, a short documentary by MDP producer Joe York, will screen this Friday night, June 25th, at the New York Food Film Festival. The documentary chronicles the Big Apple Inn on historic Farish Street in Jackosn, MS, and was produced by MDP and the Southern Foodways Alliance in recognition of Geno Lee, owner/operator of the Big Apple Inn and recipient of the SFA’s 2009 Ruth Fertel Keeper of the Flame Award. Check out the trailer for the New York Food Film Festival…

NYC Food Film Festival 2010 Trailer from George Motz on Vimeo.

The New York Food & Film Festival is a great event and it’s unique in that attendees get to eat the foods documented in the films while they watch. Geno Lee will be in New York Friday night to represent the film and to cook pig ear sandwiches for an already sold out crowd. If you’re not one of the lucky ones with a ticket for Friday night, you can watch the film right here…

Funding for “Smokes & Ears” was provided by the Fertel Foundation.


"Southern Food: The Movie" gets nod in "The Atlantic"

In February, MDP and the Southern Foodways Alliance embarked on a year-long project which will result in the feature-length documentary “Southern Food: The Movie”. Since then, project director Joe York has filmed segments throughout South Carolina, Arkansas, Tennessee, and along the Gulf Coast from Empire, Louisiana, to Apalachicola, Florida. In between trips, Joe sat down with Vanessa Gregory and talked a bit about the film. Gregory’s article was published on The Atlantic’s website last week. You can read it there, or right here…

Southern Food: The Movie

Jun 16 2010, 9:05 AM ET 

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This April, in a river swamp near Wewahitchka, Florida, Joe York filmed a beekeeper named Ben Lanier as he stood under a towering white Tupelo gum tree. Surrounded by the fierce greenery of a Southern spring, Lanier explained that the tree’s blossoms last for just two weeks, and they are the only source of a prized, light-colored honey his family has harvested since 1898. “I grew up in a beehive,” Lanier says.

For seven years, York has made short films on a shoestring about people like Lanier—farmers, barbecue pitmasters, pie bakers, cheesemakers, and fry cooks—who live and work in the South. He also shot and edited Saving Willie Mae’s Scotch House, a feature about rebuilding a New Orleans restaurant after Hurricane Katrina. His food films focus on an American culinary landscape rarely seen: a rural place populated by working-class people who, as York shows, are just as reverent about ingredients and cooking as any urbanite with a CSA subscription and a five-dollar cup of shade-grown coffee.

The footage of Lanier, which York showed me on a laptop in his office at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, is part of York’s newest and loftiest project. Over the next year, the self-taught filmmaker plans to document the ways life and food intersect in every state in the South. He’s aiming for a cinematic summation of today’s Southern foods, from a seed saver in Kentucky to such chefs as Hugh Acheson and Sean Brock, who are reinventing traditions through high-end food. “It’s hugely ambitious,” York says. “It’s way bigger than anything we’ve done.”

He doesn’t appear on camera or supply voice-overs; he’d rather offer lingering shots of golden fried chicken or images of grass-fed cattle in a Georgia field.

York’s project has also become way more urgent as the BP oil spill spreads in the Gulf of Mexico. By chance, he was on the coast in Bayou La Batre, Alabama, when the spill began. The town’s annual blessing of the fleet, a normally celebratory affair with mountains of boiled shrimp and fried fish, had turned anxious. Archbishop Thomas J. Rodi, the man who during the blessing asks God for a safe and bountiful season, told York, “We don’t know where it’s going, how it will impact us—and the danger that poses not just to a livelihood but to an entire way of life.” Across the state line in Biloxi, York found a similar scene: Vietnamese-American shrimpers unable to trawl in Mississippi waters because the season had yet to open, and unable to work off the coasts of Louisiana or Texas because of oil. York’s footage captured men ill at ease with idleness; one passed the time fussing with his boat, painstakingly painting the image of a shrimp on the hull since he couldn’t go to sea and catch the real thing.

York says his feature, which he’s calling Southern Food: The Movie, is a small way of giving these shrimpers and others outside the industrial food chain a voice. There’s little doubt his film will be activist in spirit, but if his earlier work is any indication, it will be less strident than something like Super Size Me. York’s movies are financed by the University of Mississippi’s Media and Documentary Projects Center and the Southern Foodways Alliance, a non-profit that promotes Southern food and culture. The alliance’s director is the author John T. Edge, and although Edge writes about similar topics as a columnist for the New York Times, he said York has his own voice and the potential to affect a broader audience interested in the intersection between food and culture. “Writing is a geek’s pursuit,” Edge says. “Film is a pop pursuit. And I don’t mean to denigrate film: we can reach more people with film.”

Like Edge, York is a democratic foodie, so you can afford to eat most of what he puts on the screen. You can also watch most of his films online, for free. His style is similarly democratic. He doesn’t appear on camera or supply voice-overs; he’d rather offer lingering shots of golden fried chicken or images of grass-fed cattle in a Georgia field. “Most of the time it’s just kind of me with the camera talking to these guys,” York says. And that intimacy seems to inspire an uninhibited honesty in his subjects. In his short, Smokes & Ears, about the Big Apple Inn sandwich shop in Jackson, Mississippi, patrons sing to York’s camera about the joys of pig ear sandwiches.

York’s big hope—aside from making this movie happen on a $50,000 budget—is to persuade multiple public television stations across the South to simultaneously premiere Southern Food: The Movie. York likes the public aspect of public television. And just as in Smoke & Ears, which uses pork sandwiches to talk about Jackson’s segregated past, he’ll be editing with the idea that we learn who we are by exploring what we eat.

How well that approach will work for a place as diverse as the South remains to be seen. Anyone who lives here knows that Mississippi hardly shares much with neighboring Arkansas, let alone Virginia or Florida. No matter how York defines the South, it’s sure to invite some criticism. Already, he has drawn a hard line through Texas: only the east counts as the South. “What exactly is Southern?” York says. “We’re trying to figure that out.” His answer will be worth watching.

Invested in Service

Dr. Daniel Jones was inaugurated as the 16th Chancellor of the University of Mississippi in a ceremony this morning in the beautiful Gertrude C. Ford Center for Performing Arts. We will be posting the entire ceremony soon, but for now, here is newly inaugurated  Chancellor Dr. Daniel W. Jones’ investiture speech.

Saving Willie Mae's Scotch House airs on Colorado Public Television

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Last night “Saving Willie Mae’s Scotch House”, a film by MDP producer/director Joe York, aired on Colorado Public Television. Click here to read the CPT program listing for the film. To date, the film has aired on public television in Louisiana, Mississippi, Kentucky, California, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, Oregon, Georgia, and some other states we’re forgetting right now. We’re very glad to add Colorado to the growing list of states where “Saving Willie Mae’s Scotch House” has aired.

Tell Your Ma, Tell your Pa, I'm gonna send you back to Arkansas!

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MDP Producer/Director Joe York is just back from a week-long video shoot that took him and graduate assistant Alan Pike all across the great state of Arkansas.

Collecting footage and interviews for the forthcoming SOUTHERN FOOD: The Movie, their travels included stops in Little Rock, Lake Village, Brinkley, DeValls Bluff, Stuttgart and DeWitt, Arkansas. In between shoots, York and Pike also found time to attend the Ozark Foothills Film Festival, where York screened four MDP films to enthusiastic audiences. Check out this article from the Arkansas Times that gives a nice nod to York’s films and also discusses legendary documentary filmmaker Les Blank, who also screened films at the festival. Check back later for pictures from York and Pike’s Arkansas adventures.

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

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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 Square Hospitality Group and will  officially debut at the 2010 Big Apple Barbecue Block Party in New York. We’d like to offer a very special thanks to the good folks at Jim ‘N Nicks Barbecue, who hosted the event which featured the sneak peek. Though we weren’t able to attend the event, the reviews have been amazing. Here’s a great one from Libby Wiersema of SCNow.com:

“The Pee Dee was the unexpected star of the show when the Charleston Wine + Food Festival presented the Pitmaster’s Bourbon & Q Dinner at Jim ’N Nick’s Bar-B-Q on March 6.
Sold-out themed dinners were packing dining rooms throughout the historic district and this popular eatery in the heart of King Street was no different. Guests were greeted at the door with sugar-rimmed glasses of bourbon and led to their assigned seats. In less than half-an-hour, every table and booth was brimming with fun-loving foodies. New friendships were struck and laughter abounded as the bourbon flowed and diners nibbled on pickled shrimp, boiled peanuts and pork rinds.
I was seated across from cookbook author Ted Lee, who was dispelling myths about Bobby Flay’s arrogance (apparently Flay is the “nicest, kindest” food personality on the planet, according to Lee) when the first hint that some home flavor was on the menu came parading through the dining room. The front door swung wide, and two brawny men in red T-shirts advertising Scott’s Bar-B-Que in Hemingway made their way carefully through the narrow aisles bearing a sizzling hog. All eyes were fixed upon the scene. Mouths gaped. Applause rang out. Then they disappeared into the kitchen.
About that time, platters of Jim ’N Nick’s garlicky pork hot links, pimento cheese and liver mousse with wood-grilled bread were laid before us and we dug in, the meat parade forgotten for the time-being. That was followed by trays of freshly roasted Folly River oysters, tender and sweet. All that shucking called for another round of tasty bourbon cocktails, artfully concocted by two of the evening’s guests, Greg Best of Atlanta’s Holeman and Finch Public House and Julian Van Winkle of Old Rip Van Winkle Distillery in Kentucky.
A rowdiness was pervading the atmosphere by the time the course ended. The decibel levels were stretching the limits, and conversations were being shouted. A bluegrass trio was in full swing — if there’d been room to dance, I’m sure some clogging would have accompanied. I noticed a couple of guys struggling to erect a projector screen in front of the door. They didn’t seriously think they could rein this crowd in long enough to show a film, did they? Oh yes they did. But it wasn’t until the first few frames flickered that things started to quiet down. There on the screen was one of the meat bearers from Hemingway. His name is a familiar one in the Pee Dee — Rodney Scott — and the film was a documentary tribute to the way he does business.
I am not kidding when I say that there was perfect silence in that dining room as we witnessed what I can only describe as Scott’s amazing labor of love. As we watched him harvest wood with a chainsaw, stoke fires and flip hogs on his custom cookers, there was a palpable sense of awe developing amongst us. When Scott applied sauce to the hog using a kitchen mop, the entire audience erupted into mad applause. They were tickled by the down-home testimonials of local Scott’s Bar-B-Que patrons. Scott, who was watching from a corner with us, laughed as well, clearly caught up in the building enthusiasm of his newest fan base.
The film faded to black, and as difficult as it was in the cramped space of the room, the awestruck diners leaped to their feet, roaring and shouting and applauding this Pee Dee pitmaster. Crowds of people — many of whom have never heard of the Pee Dee — moved in to shake this man’s callused hands. They hugged him, pounded his back like old friends, asked for autographs, took photographs. When I asked Scott how it felt to be the star of the show, he beamed and said, “Man, it’s unreal. I never thought I’d be here in Charleston and be part of this festival like this. I just can’t believe it.”
Minutes later, plates of Anson Mills grits topped with heaping portions of Scott’s succulent pig were served. Our empty plates seemed a fitting expression of the love we all felt that night for this local barbecue phenomenon.

CUD goes to Hollywood

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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, which will take place at the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills, CA, check out their website at goinggreenfilmfest.com (Click on the word CUD to watch the trailer!)

MDP Films to be featured at Ozark Foothills Film Festival

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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 Projects Center & the Southern Foodways Alliance, providing the four mouth-watering “foodie” films that make up the “Southern Succulents Food Film Showcase.” Produced by filmmaker Joe York, the movies explore Southern food traditions, from pig ear and smoked sausage sandwiches to North Carolina barbeque.”

To learn more about the festival and to order tickets visit ozarkfoothillsfilmfest.org

"Smokes & Ears" to screen at Crossroads & Tupelo Film Fests

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“Smokes & Ears”, a documentary short by MPD producer Joe York about the Big Apple Inn on Jackson, Mississippi’s famed Farish Street, will screen at the upcoming Crossroads Film Festival in Jackson (April 17th) and also at the upcoming Tupelo Film Festival (May 13-15). “Smokes & Ears” co-produced by MDP and the Southern Foodways Alliance, was created to honor Geno Lee, proprietor of the Big Apple Inn and the winner of the SFA’s 2009 Ruth Fertel Keeper of the Flame Award.

A Capitol Event

The Overby Center hosted a unique press conference style conversation with Govemor Barbour this week.  Karen jostled for position to make sure we could record the event, which will be on OMTV soon.

Willie Mae's Audience Continues to Grow

Joe York’s Media and Documentary Projects film has received a new round of distribution on public television stations across the country.  It was a pleasant surprise to find Saving Willie Mae’s Scotch House listed on WKNO this evening.  To date, Willie Mae’s has aired on over 20 public television stations and that number will continue to grow with the latest distribution.

MDP is the MAC

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This week the Media and Documentary Projects Center traveled to McComb and Tupelo to address the Mississippi Arts Commission  festival and event coordinator’s workshops (co-sponsored by the Mississippi Development Authority).  Andy, Matthew, and Micah hit the road and we used this blog entry to show how easy it is to create content on the fly for websites with the WordPress application for iPhone.   Thanks to Southern Studies graduate and MAC Heritage Director Mary Margaret Miller for the invitation.

Smokes & Ears

Smokes & Ears tells the story of the Big Apple Inn in Jackson, Mississippi. Known as “Big John’s” by its faithful customers, the Big Apple Inn’s defining duo of pig ear sandwiches and hot smoked sausage sandwiches (known as “smokes”) has kept folks coming back again and again for over 70 years, and counting.This short film was produced and directed by Joe York at the University of Mississippi’s Media & Documentary Projects Center in association with the Southern Foodways Allliance. The film debuted at the 2009 Southern Foodways Symposium as part of an awards ceremony recognizing Geno Lee, owner of The Big Apple, as the 2009 Ruth Fertel Keeper of the Flame Award Winner.

Crunch Time!

The Media and Documentary Projects Center worked with Jamil Northcutt in the Athletics Dept. to produce this video as a means of encouraging fans at the games to recycle. The spot was produced to be played at home games between the 3rd and 4th quarter, with a dual purpose: Remind everyone to recycle and to get ready for the “crunchtime” of the 4th quarter.

Produced by Jamil Northcutt, Matthew Graves, Andy Harper, and Micah Ginn.

Dr. Neff on Memory and the Civil War


University of Mississippi History Professor John Neff recently delivered his 2009 Humanities Teacher of the Year address, “Our Hearts Were Touched with Fire: The Memory of the Civil War.” Media and Documentary Projects was there to record the very timely Lecture.  Dr. Neff is the founding director of the UM Center for Civil War Research.  Edited by MDP graduate intern Xaris Martinez.

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!).

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Above: Matthew Graves tests out the system in advance of the M-Club Hall of Fame Ceremony and Andy Harper shoots the SFA Viking Range lecture featuring Warren Belasco.  Below: Micah Ginn sets up the switcher for the Alumni Hall of Fame, and Karen Tuttle helps shoot the Overby Center event honoring member of the 1959 National Championship football team.

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Experience Distance Learning

This video promotes the University of Mississippi’s Master of Arts in Higher Education/Student Personnel Professional Cohort Program.

Those of us at Media & Documentary Projects would like to thank Michael McGuire, Stephanie Mitchell, and Lee Dean of UM Distance Learning for making this video possible. They do amazing work and we are all very thankful for their help.

Mississippi Innocence Project

Experience this amazing promotional video produced by MPD’s Joe York for the Mississippi Innocence Project at the University of Mississippi’s School of Law.

The Mississippi Innocence Project identifies,investigates and litigates meritorious claims of innocence on behalf of Mississippi prisoners serving lengthy periods of incarceration.

Tuttle on the Job

Media and Documentary Projects utility player Karen Tuttle got some time behind the camera this last week.

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Karen covered the Residential College grand opening as well as the first in the Overby Center Gathering in the Grove series featuring Charles Eagles on Friday.

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She also recorded oral histories for the School of Journalism on Monday.  Nice work Karen!

Happy Birthday Square Books!

Square Books, Oxford’s revered independent bookstore, celebrated the 30th anniversary of its founding on September 14th. They marked the occasion with readings by local authors, cocktail parties, and a screening of a short film about Square Books by MDP producer Joe York.

Making a Campus Connection

Daverin GeraldscampusconnectionMDP intern Alyssa Manhold interviewed Ole Miss starting center Daverin Geralds this week for a segment that will run later on the  ESPNU Campus Connection.   Alyssa spoke with Daverin, an SEC Academic Honor Roll honoree, about the challenges of maintaining high academic standards while playing for a top 10 football team.

Alyssa and DaverinESPNU’s Campus Connection is part of the agreement between the SEC and ESPN to create academic opportunities at each SEC member institution.  The UM Media and Documentary Projects Center is producing content for the SEC Academic Network and will work with students on campus to provide content for Campus Connection and for the SEC Week program on ESPNU.

CUD

cud-dvd-covertocropLast 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 marks a continuation of the partnership between the Media & Documentary Projects Center, the Southern Foodways Alliance, & Whole Foods Market, who provided funding for the production of the film.

To the left is the DVD artwork produced by Joe York and Matthew Graves of MDP. We would like to thank Ole Miss graduate and current Whole Foods associate Kate Medley for the use of her beautiful images in the production of the DVD artwork. Kate did excellent work as a graduate student in Southern Studies here at Ole Miss and she hasn’t skipped a beat in her new role at Whole Foods. Check out some of her great work here.

We would also like to thank Will Harris for his cooperation and graciousness in the making of this film. If you’d like to learn more about Mr. Harris and White Oak Pastures visit whiteoakpastures.com or check out the documentary below.

John T. is Splendid

johntinboothJohn 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.

MDP at the Summer OFF

marywarnerThe Media and Documentary Projects Center was well represented last night by two films showing at the Oxford Film Festival summer series.  The first was a documentary by Mary Warner and Joe York that resulted from Mary’s Southern Studies MA Thesis on Thacker Mountain Radio.  Mary Produced Thacker for several years and we were lucky enough to work with her that whole time.  Mary has graduated and moved on to Atlanta where we wish her well.

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The Second film was a screening of Joe York’s moving documentary, Saving Willie Mae’s Scotch House.  Both of these films represent the collaborative nature of our department and are great examples of the type of films I expect to be producing for years to come. — Andy

Capitol Q

This short documentary features the Skylight Inn in Ayden, North Carolina, where the Jones family carries their family tradition of cooking whole hog barbecue into its third century. Produced by Joe York of the Media & Documentary Projects Center for the Southern Foodways Alliance and the Big Apple BBQ Block Party. The documentary debuted at the Big Apple BBQ Block Party in New York in June.

Leonardo da Vinci Would be Proud

 

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Matthew Graves was at The Lyric Tuesday night to capture the Oxford City Council Forum. The  candidates for City Alderman and Mayor were on hand to discuss the issues and their goals if elected. Tune in to OMTV Ch. 99 Thursday night at 6pm to watch the event.

Mississippi Premier of Willie Mae's and great news for John Currence and John T. Edge

Willie Mae CoverMay brings the great news that Saving Willie Mae’s Scotch House will make it’s Mississippi debut

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and that two of the film’s stars, Oxford’s own John Currence and John T. Edge have joined Willie Mae Seaton as James Beard Foundation Award winners.  Currence received a Beard Foundation Award for Best Chef: South and our partner John T. was named to the  James Beard Foundation’s Who’s Who of Food and Beverage in America.  We are happy to see Joe York’s documentary, which has already aired on public television in several states, be the featured program on MPB for the month of May.  Congratulations to Joe, John T., and to John Currence.  Saving Willie Mae’s Scotch House will air statewide on MPB May 28 at 9 pm.  Until then, enjoy the trailer!