Urban Seeds Documentary

Urban Seeds

Director-Editor: Adam Steel

Executive Producer-Producer-Writer: Lani Cupchoy, Ph.D.

Initiated by Mexican immigrant students, the film highlights the story of a school-based garden movement’s extraordinary passion and fight for food justice in urban Los Angeles and how this grassroots program transformed their neighborhoods and schools into healthier communities becoming the first of its kind in the United States.

Also Urban Seeds was selected in two festivals:

IMDb link:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10726212/?ref_=nm_knf_t2

Website link:

urbanseedsfilm.com

Director/Editor Bio:

Adam Steel

Adam Steel is a Los Angeles based filmmaker who has spent the last 10 years supporting grass-roots organizations tell their story. He values the human narrative and is passionate about preserving and presenting these stories in a real and impactful way. Adam appreciates being of projects that are creating positive and lasting change both locally and globally and is currently involved in social impact projects raising awareness for mental health, incarceration, education, indigenous preservation, and social justice. He was editor of the feature documentary Project 22, which addresses the veteran suicide epidemic (on pbs.org) and continues to merge film and philanthropy through his company Grow Awareness Agency.

Executive Producer/Producer/Writer/Creator Bio:

Lani Cupchoy, Ph.D.

A public historian-artist-photographer-filmmaker, Dr. Lani Cupchoy earned her B.A. from UCLA, M.A. from California State University at Los Angeles, and Ph.D. from UC Irvine all in History. Her research focuses on Public Culture, Transnational History, Oral History, Chicanx-Latinx Studies, Asian American-Pacific Island Studies, Ethnic and Gender Studies, Indigenous Populations, Critical Food Studies, Public Scholarship, and Civic Engagement, particularly through social and cultural expressions by people of color. She has authored several publications including “Fragments of Memory” in Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, 31:1, 2010 and “Breaking the University Myth,” Diálogo, 21:2, 2018. Her article, which appeared in Yes! Magazine, captures the story of Bell Gardens Elementary school teacher Leslie Hiatt and her students who inspired AB 146 into a law requiring that the unconstitutional deportation of Mexican-Americans during the 1930s be included in California textbooks. Focusing on Hiatt and her students, Lani’s award-winning documentary, Truth Seekers (2016) illuminates the power of youth activism, community engagement, and ethnic studies. The documentary short received the Inspirational Justice Award from the Social Justice Film Festival and was utilized as reference and for sound bites in NPR Latino USA “The Kids Who Got ‘The Mexican Repatriation’ of the 1930s Into California Textbooks.” Other projects include educational films such as the documentary short Breath Hawaiian (2014), A-Z Dance-Performing Arts short film (2015), and Dual Immersion short film (2017). Her new project Urban Seeds (2019) highlights the story of a grassroots school-based garden movement’s extraordinary passion for food justice in urban Los Angeles and their fight to transform neighborhoods and schools into healthier communities.