In hopeful anticipation of our region’s growing season and the fresh food that comes with it, Mezze Restaurant Group will host a celebration of farmers and community members who embrace and enjoy local, seasonal food. Carhartts + Cocktails — a farm-to-table social event featuring the farmers who source many of the group’s menu items — will introduce farmers to regional foodies and supporters of local agriculture on Sunday, March 14 at Mezze Bistro + Bar in Williamstown from 4 p.m. until 6 p.m.

Mezze Bistro will provide complimentary hors d’oeuvres featuring local foods, and a cash bar will be available. Several farmers will offer CSA member shares for purchase. Both events are open to the public and reservations are recommended but not required.

“We received an amazing response from guests who attended our first Carhartts events last year. Community members were very excited to meet the farmers featured on our menus and to talk about local food,” said Nancy Thomas, co-founder of Mezze Restaurant Group. “We aspire to continue to raise awareness about eating locally and invite community members to share support of our neighboring farms and help sustain our regional economy and the environment,” she added.

The Carhartts event at Mezze Bistro will close the Farm Film Feast taking place in Williamstown from March 10 to 14. Storey Publishing is partnering with Images Cinema, Williams College, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts and Mezze Restaurant Group to produce Farm Film Feast, a festival presenting new, recent or in-progress documentary films and related events.

The Mezze Carhartts event will present an opportunity for filmmakers and festival participants to join in the celebration. “We planned this year’s Carhartts + Cocktails event hoping to encourage filmmakers and festival attendees of the Farm Film Feast to join in the discussion,” said Thomas. The film festival topic will be food: who produces it, how it reaches the consumer and how it affects health, the environment and local and global communities.

Participating farms at Mezze Bistro’s Carhartts + Cocktails event include Mighty Food Farm and Hidden Pasture Farm in Pownal, Vt.; Apple Tree Hill Organics Farm, Baby Cakes, Caretaker Farm, Cricket Creek Farm, East Mountain Farm, Peace Valley Farm and Sweet Brook Farm of Williamstown, Mass.; The Berry Patch of Stephentown, NY, and more.

Mezze Bistro + Bar
16 Water Street
Williamstown, MA 01267
413-458-0123

The true story of the remarkable Dervaes family farm in downtown Pasadena, CA: how two generations have worked together to create a verdant, profitable mini-farm on less than 1/3 acre. A testimonial to what a single household can accomplish.

http://www.homegrown-film.com

• Director: Robert McFalls
• Runtime: 52 min
• Year: 2009

Showing With

Soil in Good Heart

A sampler from a work in progress (Symphony of the Soil) by filmmaker Deborah Koons Garcia (The Future of Food, 2004) about the nature of soil. ( 13 mins)

http://www.ingoodheart.com

• Director: Deborah Koons Garcia
• Runtime: 13 min
• Work in progress

• Director: King Vidor
• Runtime: 75 min
• Year: 1934

Paresky Auditorium, Williams College

Free; includes dessert

Film

Greenhorns

A portrait of the powerful new movement of passionate young farmers across North America, working for a healthier and more sustainable food system. Presented by director Severine Fleming.

http://www.thegreenhorns.net

• Director: Severine Fleming
• Runtime: 21 min
• Work in progress

Ranging from the microscopic to the international to the galactic, Dirt! takes a close look at the skin of our planet — discussing soil fertility, biodiversity, erosion, climate change — and how its health affects all of life. Includes interviews with Wangari Maathai, Vandana Shiva, Sebastiao Salgado, and many more.

http://www.dirtthemovie.org

• Director: Bill Benenson and Gene Rosow
• Runtime: 86 min
• Year: 2009

Showing With

Planting Hope

The story of Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai, who launched an environmental revolution in Kenya through the simple act of planting trees.

http://www.takingrootfilm.com

• Director: Lisa Merton and Alan Dater
• Runtime: 7 min
• Year: 2009

Across the country — from the Imperial Valley in California to the Florida panhandle and the hills of Maine — farmers rely on honeybees to pollinate crops worth $15 billion every year.

But parasites, pesticides, and modern agricultural practices are making it harder and harder for beekeepers to keep their bees alive, and the crisis could affect what shows up on all of our dinner tables.

http://www.pollennationthemovie.com

• Director: Singeli Agnew and Joshua Fisher
• Runtime: 20 min
• Year: 2009

• Director: Rebecca Hosking
• Runtime: 50 min
• Year: 2009

The fourteen-acre community garden at 41st and Alameda in South Central Los Angeles is the largest of its kind in the United States. Started as a form of healing after the devastating L.A. riots in 1992, the South Central Farmers created a miracle in one of the country’s most blighted neighborhoods. Growing their own food. Feeding their families. Creating a community.

But now, bulldozers are poised to level their 14-acre oasis.

The Garden follows the plight of the farmers, from the tilled soil of this urban farm to the polished marble of City Hall. Mostly immigrants from Latin America, from countries where they feared for their lives if they were to speak out, we watch them organize, fight back, and demand answers:

Why was the land sold to a wealthy developer for millions less than fair-market value? Why was the transaction done in a closed-door session of the LA City Council? Why has it never been made public?

And the powers-that-be have the same response: “The garden is wonderful, but there is nothing more we can do.”

If everyone told you nothing more could be done, would you give up?

Introduced by Darra Goldstein, founding editor of Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture and Francis Christopher Oakley III Professor of Russian at Williams College.

http://www.thegardenmovie.com

• Director: Scott Hamilton Kennedy
• Runtime: 80 min
• Year: 2008

Showing With

Bernie

Williams College senior Allegra Hyde profiles a man who has made a difference in the lives of hundreds of North Adams residents through a much-needed food pantry. Introduced by director Allegra Hyde, Williams ’10.

• Director: Allegra Hyde
• Runtime: 4 min
• Year: 2009

A lighthearted look at how the Poultry Underground has staged a coop in our cities: from Portland, ME, to Portland, OR, urban dwellers are raising hens in backyards and on balconies. Introduced by Jenna Woginrich, author of Made from Scratch. Jenna will sign copies of her book following the film.

http://www.madcitychickens.com

• Director: Tashai Lovington and Robert Luchai
• Runtime: 81 min
• Year: 2008

Filmed over the course of one year, the film follows two eleven-year-old multi-racial city kids as they explore their place in the food chain. Sadie and Safiyah take a close look at food systems in New York City and its surrounding areas. With the camera as their companion, the girl guides talk to each other, food activists, farmers, new friends, storekeepers, their families, and the viewer, in their quest to understand what’s on all of our plates.

The girls address questions regarding the origin of the food they eat, how it’s cultivated, how many miles it travels from the harvest to their plate, how it’s prepared, who prepares it, and what is done afterward with the packaging and leftovers. They visit the usual supermarkets, fast food chains, and school lunchrooms. But they also check into innovative sustainable food system practices by going to farms, greenmarkets, and community supported agriculture programs. They discover that these programs both help struggling farmers to survive on the one hand and provide affordable, locally-grown food to communities on the consumer end, especially to lower-income urban families. In What’s On Your Plate?, the two friends formulate sophisticated and compassionate opinions on the state of their society, and by doing so inspire hope and active engagement in others.

http://www.whatsonyourplateproject.org

• Director: Mischa Hedges
• Runtime: 52 min
• Year: 2006

Showing With

Sparkle

With strands reminiscent of Charlotte’s Web, a little girl enters her beloved pig in a country fair.

• Runtime: 4 min
• Year: 2009