First We Eat is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Suzanne Crocker and released in 2020.[1] The film documents the attempts of Crocker and her family, after a landslide temporarily blocked highway access to their hometown of Dawson City, Yukon, to spend a full year exclusively consuming food that had been hunted, fished, gathered, grown or raised locally, while carefully considering the environmental and social impacts of modern commercial transport of food.[2] The documentary film premiered on May 28, 2020 on Hot Docs.

First We Eat
Film poster
Directed bySuzanne Crocker
Written bySuzanne Crocker
Produced bySuzanne Crocker
CinematographySuzanne Crocker
Edited byMichael Brockington
Caroline Christie
Astrid Schau-Larsen
Music byCorb Lund
Alex Houghton
Jesse Cooke
Marieke Hiensch
Andrew Laviolette
Production
company
Drift Productions
Release date
Running time
101 minutes
CountryCanada
LanguageEnglish

Production

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Crocker first announced the project in 2017.[3] The film's production website also incorporates an ongoing collaborative project on food security, including guides to foraging for edible wild plants, a seed guide to fruits and vegetables that grow well in Yukon, and a recipe guide to dishes that can be cooked with local ingredients available in the Dawson City area.[4]

Release

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The film premiered as part of the 2020 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival.[5] Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada it was not screened theatrically, but premiered as part of the festival's online streaming component.[6] It was named one of five winners of the festival's Rogers Audience Award, alongside the films The Walrus and the Whistleblower, 9/11 Kids, The Forbidden Reel and There's No Place Like This Place, Anyplace.[7]

It was opening film at 18th EBS International Documentary Film Festival held from 23 to 28 August 2021 in Seoul, South Korea. It was screened on August 23, 2021.[8]

References

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  1. ^ Susan G. Cole, "Hot Docs Review: ‘First We Eat’". Point of View, May 26, 2020.
  2. ^ Gregory Strong, "Dawson City family eats only local food for a year in documentary ‘First We Eat’". Toronto Star, May 27, 2020.
  3. ^ Lori Garrison, "First we eat: Dawson woman to subsist on local food only for a year". Yukon News, July 6, 2017.
  4. ^ Lori Fox, "It’s Ridiculously Hard to Eat Local in the Yukon". Vice, January 30, 2019.
  5. ^ Daniele Alcinii, "Twenty-three Canadian titles among Hot Docs virtual lineup". Playback, May 5, 2020.
  6. ^ Garnet Fraser, "Hot Docs to stream dozens of films in new digital version of festival". Toronto Star, May 5, 2020.
  7. ^ Lauren Malyk, "Hot Docs names $50K Audience Award winners". Playback, June 8, 2020.
  8. ^ Yoo Kyung-sun (August 23, 2021). "EBS국제다큐영화제, 올해도 관객이 심사합니다" [EBS International Documentary Film Festival, this year the audience will judge]. Kyunghyang Newspaper (in Korean). Naver. Retrieved August 23, 2021.
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