Thank you to everybody for their support!!  We send our sincere gratitude and look forward to sharing the project that you helped to create! 

If you came to the site to donate and fear you are too late - don't worry, we still have until 16 September!!  Any additional donations would be extremely helpful in covering a simple and effective website, publicity, tape transfer for festival entries + entry fees, dvd production...

Many thanks again for all the support - financial or not! 

The project and why it's important.

Calabria to California, a feature documentary over two years in the making, explores stories of artisan food producers from both regions.  Their narratives illustrate oppositional and yet complimentary alimentary atmospheres of loss, knowledge, economics and the eternal tension between pleasure and pain.  In a time when industrial foods flatten Taste, manual labour calculates a waste of time, ecology remains a fringe interest, and the life of our food is increasingly obscured - how can we reclaim a meaningful relationship with our daily pleasure?   Who are the current actors and those of the future?  Many films before ours have accused big corporations of delivering seriously doubtful foods.  This time the projector is for the Olive, the Goat, and the Piggy that make us feel so good when we enjoy the fruits of their existence. 

The documentary is a true independent endeavor.  Produced, directed, filmed, edited, and - until now - entirely funded by Jennifer Kendzior and Vincenzo Candido.  We were inspired by our experiences in Vincenzo's birthplace of Castelsilano (a shrinking village of 900 in the Sila Mountains of Calabria, southernmost Italy) and a long visit to San Francisco, California (where we appreciated the reverence for every food homemade).  

The next step.

Production is finished, editing is underway... but the film is at a critical stage.  Simply put, we need 3200 / $4,600. 

We are so very close... once the editing is finished (mid-August), the remaining costs to ready the film for festival competition, broadcast, local screenings, and DVD distribution:  An editor (to help with some final technical details) at 600 + colour correction at 600 + sound mix at 2000.  Should anything be left over - or the donations exceed the objective (this is permitted!) - funds will build a website full of interesting and entertaining resources.

Our objective is pretty small in comparison to the full budget of about 42,000 / $60,000...  so every contribution counts!!  Thanks for keeping this in mind as you think about the project and spread the word to others.  In addition to our sincere gratitude for every gesture made, and the satisfaction you'll feel at helping this much-loved and labour-intensive project take final form, we look forward to exchanging some gifts with you... 

and - Good news for those who live in the USA!  Our partnership with San Francisco Film Society means that your contribution is tax deductible! 

Funding this project means spending less on pharmaceuticals and doctor fees as food that is alive will keep us going longer!
 

Other important things...

Our fiscal sponsors are San Francisco Film Society and Documentary Educational Resources.  We are grateful for the participation of artisans in California and Calabria, Napoli 99 (cultural organisation in Calabria), Garden For the Environment (a wonderful demonstration garden in San Francisco), and advice of several knowledgeable individuals.  We are extremely pleased to include music by G.R.M.P., a group of Castelsilanese musicians who refurbished traditional instruments to play songs of their time, and YOU Are Amazing, from Paris.   

Our thanks for participating in Calabria to California in whatever way you can.  

Contact us:  Jennifer JKendzior@gmail.com, Vincenzo VincenzoCandido@gmail.com or calabriatocalifornia@gmail.com.

calabriatocalifornia.com | facebook.com/CalabriaToCalifornia