Bushel Hosts Film Screening and Cooking Demo to Highlight Native American Foodways, Nov 14

DELHI — On Monday, November 14, 5:30 pm, Bushel hosts the First Nations Development Institute (FDNI) for a special event: a screening of the film Gather(2020), a documentary about Native American food sovereignty. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the film’s director Sanjay Rawal and FDNI’s director of programs A-dae Romero Briones and development officers Jona Charette and Marisa Page. The event culminates with a cooking demo by Emma Shenandoah of the Wolf Clan of the Mohawk Nation (Akwesasne, NY) and a tasting for attendees. 

Tickets are $30 for this limited-seating event (sliding scale available). Email Bushel at info@bushelcollective.org to reserve your seats or go directly to the Eventbrite page: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/gather-film-screening-chef-demo-and-qa-tickets-432056411357. Bushel is located at 106 Main Street, Delhi, ground floor.

Gather (directed by Sanjay Rawal, 2020) is an intimate portrait of the growing movement amongst Native Americans to reclaim their spiritual, political, and cultural identities through food sovereignty, while battling the trauma of centuries of genocide. The film follows Nephi Craig, a chef from the White Mountain Apache Nation (Arizona), opening an indigenous café as a nutritional recovery clinic; Elsie Dubray, a young scientist from the Cheyenne River Sioux Nation (South Dakota), conducting landmark studies on bison; and the Ancestral Guard, a group of environmental activists from the Yurok Nation (Northern California), trying to save the Klamath river. Gather was awarded Best Documentary Feature at the Red Nation Film Festival Awards and named a Critic’s Pick by the New York Times, both in 2020; in 2022 Gather won a James Beard Foundation Media Award for Best Documentary.

Gather’s director Sanjay Rawal will be present at the event. He is an Indian-American documentary film director with three feature-length films to his credit: Food Chains (2014), 3100: Run and Become (2018), and Gather (2020). Prior to filmmaking, Rawal spent 15 years working on grassroots peace-building campaigns and ran international development initiatives led by notable artists and philanthropists. Rawal has won two James Beard awards and received support from the Ford Foundation, NoVo, Schmidt Family Foundation, and others.

Also present at the event will be three principals of the First Nations Development Institute: A-dae Romero-Briones (Cochiti/Kiowa), Jona Charette (N. Cheyenne/Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa), and Marisa Page (Pawnee/Ponca/Comanche).

Special guest from the region will be Emma Shenandoah (Wolf Clan of the Mohawk Nation), a chef residing in Akwesasne, New York. She will present a cooking demonstration, participate in the Q&A, and offer a tasting to attendees.

BUSHEL is a 501 (c) 3 nonprofit, volunteer-led, mixed-use space dedicated to art, agriculture, ecology, and action. It is located at 106 Main Street in Delhi. For more information, go to www.bushelcollective.org.