Still from "Farm to Trailer"

This is an announcement for a new food documentary by Christian Remde. For more info, you can visit the film’s website here: farmtotrailerdoc.com

The word ‘organic’ gets tossed around a lot these days, but what does it really mean for consumers who are looking to eat well, but not spend a lot of money?

Farm To Trailer documents the award-winning Odd Duck food trailer in Austin, Texas and chef Bryce Gilmore’s use of only locally-grown, organic food for their menu. The film also examines the Farm To Table movement, how it’s effecting the Austin food scene and the benefits for consumers.

Farm To Trailer: A Documentary from Christian Remde on Vimeo.

As a filmmaker, I’ve almost always made narrative films, but as a viewer I love watching documentaries, so I decided to make a doc as part of my 12 Films Project.  This project was started in January as a way to challenge myself to make one short film every month in 2011.  You can see them at www.12filmsproject.com.

My wife and I moved to Austin from New York City a little over a year ago and I really fell in love with the Austin food truck scene and especially Odd Duck.  We also often shop at the farmer’s markets here in town and I was familiar with the Farm to Table movement.  Seeing the amazing way Bryce fuses the food trailer scene with 100% locally-sourced food sparked the initial idea for the documentary.

Still from "Farm to Trailer"

Shooting the documentary was a great learning experience for me, both as a filmmaker and as someone who appreciates food.  The shoot took place over a couple days and weekends during a 3 week period.  In addition to shooting at Odd Duck and at the farmer’s market with Bryce, I was also able to visit Milagro Farms and interview the owner, Kris Olsen, who is one of Bryce’s main suppliers.

Making the documentary was so rewarding that I’m planning on shooting two more this year.  The first is going to be about Charcuterie and its resurgence here in Austin.  The second is something I’m calling “The New American Farm” about how farming started as a family business and gradually became a corporate institution.  As we’ve all seen, small, family-run farms are starting to pop up again, especially now that “organic” and “local” have become labels that people are actively searching for and my goal is to show how the small farms are impacting food culture.  The origin of this later doc came from the eye-opening day I spent with Kris Olsen on his farm and he will be featured in that doc as well.

Christian Remde