Bethel Filmmaker's Big Screen Debut Coming to Ridgefield Playhouse

I didn't know how bad it was.

I didn't know that one in three Americans are pre diabetic or that adult onset diabetes is no longer an illness for the obese (or adults).

All I knew was that I was now diabetic.

I can't express to you how shocked I was. As an active 165lb thirty something, diabetes was the last thing on my mind. Not long after my diagnosis I heard an NPR news story about cases of diabetes and pre-diabetes skyrocketing. That was the tipping point for me, for my own sanity, I needed to piece this puzzle together. I soon discovered that millions of Americans who regularly exercise and eat a diet recommended by the USDA were classified as "skinny-fat".

As a filmmaker it was a logical next step for me to write a documentary film about what I was learning. Was our lifestyle, culture, or food ecosystem, enabling this shift? Or was it the catalyst? And, more importantly, could this wave of momentum be reversed? These are the questions that I decided to tackle in the documentary film Carb-Loaded: A Culture Dying to Eat.

Getting KickStarted

The next step was to secure funding to produce the film. I decided to use the crowd funding website KickStarter. The fundraising goal was set for the amount of $40,000 to cover our production costs. To our shock and amazement, we raised nearly $60,000. We discovered that countries like Sweden and South Africa had huge populations of people eating a "low-carb" diet. They were instant fans for the project. So much so that as soon a Swedish blogger posted information about our film on his blog we doubled our yearly website traffic in a weekend.To date our KickStarter video has been viewed over a quarter of a million times.

Production Starts

Carb-Loaded had begun pre-production early in the spring of 2012, after the KickStarter campaign we went into full production mode. For the next two years we have traveled all over the country in the process of creating this film. We managed to connect with some of the absolute top people on this issue. Leading nutrition scientists, doctors and researchers weighed in on this unparalleled epidemic. Best selling authors sat down with us and gave us insight on just how massive this issue really is. Over the process of shooting the film I started to apply the things I had learned. I realized that in many ways my food choices had gotten me sick, and so my food choice were going to help me find my health again. Slowly I started cutting carbs out of my diet. Within a few weeks I no longer needed medication to keep my blood sugar where it needed to be.

Overtime I learned that eating healthy food can actually be enjoyable. When it comes to food, if a way of life isn't enjoyable it's just a diet...and diets fail. I discovered that eating a low carb diet is a sustainable and easy way to stave off diabetes. It is my hope that people will take that concept away with them after watching the film.

Home Stretch

I'm excited to be on the home stretch with this project. The interviews are all edited and all of the many animation sequences are done. The musical score has been mixed. The next big thing to do now is premiere it.

The beautiful Ridgefield Playhouse has agreed to be the venue for our premiere on the evening of Saturday, September 27th. So if you are in Ridgefield in late September, please come by. We will have a Q&A after the film as well as low carb food tasting. I'll see you there!