Jackson, Wyo – Today, Slow Food in the Tetons and JenTen Productions announced that they are teaming up to document the critical first year of Jackson’s cutting-edge greenhouse, Vertical Harvest. This expensive and innovative business intends to provide year-round fresh produce and to employ individuals with disabilities.
The collaboration, a one-hour broadcast-quality documentary, is titled Hearts of Glass. The film is a program of the Jackson non-profit and is being produced/directed by Jennifer Tennican.
“I’m impressed by the quality of Slow Food’s programming and community outreach around local food production, so it’s a delight to be partnering with them on this project,” said Tennican. “They are focused on the intersection of food and community and that focus is central to Hearts of Glass.”
“It’s exciting to step into the unknown with this innovative business. We have amazing characters with a lot a stake personally and professionally,” said Tennican.
Tennican will tell the story from various points of view – food producers and consumers both inside and outside of Vertical Harvest.
“We are excited to include the voices of some of the employees with disabilities and their family members. It’s an opportunity to allow some less-visible community members to tell their own stories and raise awareness about an underemployed population,” she added.
To fund this project, Slow Food in the Tetons and JenTen Productions have launched a crowdfunding campaign on Seed&Spark. Seed&Spark focuses exclusively on film projects.
The timing of Hearts of Glass’ campaign is fortuitous because it puts Hearts of Glass in the running for additional funding and distribution through The Untold Story Crowdfunding Rally, a partnership between Seed&Spark and Project Greenlight Digital Studios. The rally is for feature documentaries in production whose focus is a story an audience has never seen before. Hearts of Glass needs to raise $20,000 (80% of the funding goal) and have at least 500 followers by the end of the 30-day campaign to be competitive in the crowdfunding rally. Followers can be financial supporters or those who sign up with their email to the campaign by clicking the follow button on the campaign page. In order to make it to the finals of the rally, Hearts of Glass has to be one of the top 10 most followed projects by July 1, the rally’s end date.
Slow Food in the Tetons and Tennican are taking advantage of an opportunity to raise funds for the film and awareness about local food production, innovation, sustainability and disability advocacy.
“The possibility of these interest groups overlapping on a project like Hearts of Glass is exciting – we love the idea of deepening existing community connections and creating new ones,” said Tennican.
“This project will help us achieve our organization’s long term goals by raising awareness about local food options in our mountain town. It will encourage us to prioritize the role of good, clean and fair food as part of a sustainable community,” added Scott Steen, Director of Operations of Slow Food in the Tetons.
Donations to the film are tax-deductible through Slow Food in the Tetons.
