A feature documentary
Every plant tells a story. Every story feeds a revolution. Every revolution wakes up land-based people.
The edible and medicinal
landscapes we
forgot we knew.
The people’s pantry was once full of acorns, berries, seaweed, smoked meats, mushrooms, ferments and medicines. This film brings us back to the land, back to the table, and back to each other.
Memory of flavor
Flavor is the memory of relationship: to land, to ancestors, and to strangers who become kin around a shared bowl.
Spring
Oglala Lakota knowledge keepers, South Dakota
Wild ramps, prairie turnips, chokecherries, sage
Cultural revival and intergenerational healing
Summer
Gullah Geechee descendants, coastal Georgia
Sea lettuce, glasswort, palmetto hearts, muscadine grapes
Food as resistance and community resilience
Fall
Mexican-American communities, the Southwest
Prickly pear, mesquite beans, wild oregano, chia
Migration stories and cultural preservation
Winter
Urban Indigenous communities, Minneapolis
Urban foraging and staying connected
Finding home in exile and urban adaptation
Where immigrant hands meet Indigenous knowledge.
How we tell it
Extreme macro, time-lapse, root to seed. Then we meet the person who has been quietly in relationship with it.
Potential storylines
A Lakota knowledge keeper in South Dakota.
A Gullah Geechee chef on a Georgia sea island. (GULL-uh GEE-chee)
An herbalist in the Sonoran desert.
Impact goals
Recipes to make at home, ethical foraging guides, plant safety, and curriculum for schools, all carried by an impact campaign built with the communities in the film.
Document and amplify marginalized food knowledge
Support community-led food security initiatives
Highlight the links between land access and cultural survival
Create curriculum materials for schools and communities
Help communities build self-reliant, closed-loop food economies for local vendors and makers
The impact campaign
A 15–20 city exhibition and engagement tour. Every screening becomes a locally rooted experience, shaped by its community, season, landscape and partners. Each city asks:
At every stop
The film, followed by conversation with the filmmakers and the people in it.
Tastings and chef-created dishes built from the region's own wild foods.
Demonstrations, ethical foraging guidance and a curriculum for schools.
Pop-ups and local partners, so the value stays in the community.
The People's Pantry
The pantry in Maine looks very different from the pantry in California, New Mexico, Louisiana or the Pacific Northwest.
That difference is the point.
Every stop adds to a growing People's Pantry Map:
Director / Producer
25 years in production and feature films. Studying at the California School of Herbal Studies led Carey to the wild landscapes and the people who hold this knowledge.
Producer / Line Producer
Co-founder of the Slamdance Film Festival and former head of AFI Fest. Producer of award-winning impact documentaries with Cause Pictures.
Director of Photography
Born among the California redwoods, a lifelong surfer and waterman. Clients include National Geographic, The New York Times and Patagonia.
An invitation
We are part of the wave of land back people. Back to the shared table, back to one another. If you’re a funder, partner, or production company who feels the pull, we’d love to talk about budgets, distribution, and the impact campaign.
