Next Cinema Politica Screening - Dive!

Together as part of the international documentary screening network Cinema Politica, Gallery 1C03 and the University of Winnipeg Students’ Association (UWSA) present the film Dive! Living off America’s Waste in Eckhardt-Gramatté Hall on Tuesday, March 13 at 7:00 p.m.

Directed by Jeremy Seifert, Dive! Living off America’s Waste (United States, 2010) was selected by UWSA EcoPIA (Ecological Peoples in Action) and is presented in conjunction with second annual Grass Routes Sustainability Festival on campus. The film has received 21 awards in festivals worldwide.

Dive! follows director Jeremy Seifert and his friends as they dumpster dive behind several grocery stores in the Los Angeles area to demonstrate the massive amount of food that is wasted each year in America. After showing that much of the food found in dumpsters is perfectly edible, Seifert confronts the managers of the stores to question why they don't donate more of it to local food banks, especially in light of the 1996 US Federal Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act, which protects them from liability for such donations. The legality and ethics of dumpster diving are discussed when the stores begin locking up their dumpsters. Finally, Seifert considers waste created by individual consumers when they throw out food that is only partly bad or just past its expiration date.

From the film’s website:

Facts About Food Waste

“The kind of society that would waste this much food is one that doesn't value the earth or the products it produces. It's in our own personal detriment to continue the process.”
-Dr. Timothy Jones

Every year in America 96 billion pounds of food is thrown away.

One half of all food prepared in the US and Europe never gets eaten.

The US Department of Agriculture estimated in 1996 that recovering just 5 percent of the food that is wasted could feed four million people a day; recovering 25 percent would feed 20 million people. Today we recover less than 2.5 percent.

Please stay for discussion after the film with Quincy Brandt from EcoPIA.

All screenings will be open to all audiences – everyone is welcome. Admission is free, but donations to offset the costs of screening the film are welcome. Eckhardt-Gramatté Hall is located on the third floor of Centennial Hall at The University of Winnipeg.

Gallery 1C03 and the UWSA wish to thank Cinema Politica for making it possible for us to participate in this network. We are grateful to the Canada Council for the Arts for generously supporting this initiative.

Image: Scene from Dive! by Jeremy Seifert.