You’ve seen films in theaters, rooftops, and bars. And now, you can see films on, well, not a dock, but something close to it: The Bell House in Gowanus (149 7th St., 718-643-6510), where the backroom hosts Brooklyn Based’s fantastic documentary series, Drinks on the Doc, brought to you by BB contributor and film curator Rachael Rakes. We pair debuts, recent festival faves, unsung classics and under-the-radar indies with recession-proof drink specials for the low, low price of $5.

June 10: The Brooklyn premiere of Food Inc. *SOLD OUT*
We will have some $10, first come, first served tickets available, standing room only, entrance at 7:45.

It’s a feast and a film all in one! Doors open at 7 for pre-film nibbles courtesy of Sweet Deliverance, Roebling Tea Room, McClure’s Pickles, and Nunu Chocolate and beer courtesy of Brooklyn Brewery. Film at 8, Q & A afterward with director Robert Kenner and Eric Schlosser (the film company just told us Schlosser has a conflict that evening, our apologies for the last minute change). Get your tickets now! $25 each, $10 standing room tickets sold at the door starting at 7:45. All $25 tickets get a seat in the Bell House Ballroom.

Food, Inc.
Directed by Robert Kenner
2009

What does the industrial food system actually look like? What are you voting against when you buy the organic greens at the farmer’s market and the milk from upstate cows? Corporate and government nepotism, union busting, high powered lawyers and very, very unappetizing chickens.

That’s how director Robert Kenner tells the tale of American food production in his new documentary, Food, Inc. Featuring interviews
with Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma) the movie explains how what we eat has become more than than a thrice daily exercise in sustenance, but a crucial opportunity to change, or support, an ailing and corrupt system of food production.

Fear not, Food, Inc. isn’t the film adaptation of The Jungle — it offers hope for eaters everywhere. Interviews with entrepreneurs like
Stonyfield Farms’ Gary Hirschberg and with the inimitable Joe Salatin of Polyface Farms illustrate that there are fearless farmers,
advocates and eaters changing the system, one pig, cow, chicken and
bite at a time.

jc

PAST SCREENINGS:
April 7, 8pm: Jesus Camp

2006, Directed by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady
Celebrate Easter early with BB and the evangelicals at Kids on Fire summer camp in Devil’s Lake, North Dakota, where young ‘uns are taught to become Christian soldiers in God’s army. $3 pints of Fisherman’s Brew and bottles of Navigator courtesy Cape Ann Brewing Co. Amen, brother!

j2April 28, 7:30 pm: Helvetica
2007, Directed by Gary Hustwit
Helvetica is the first in a triptych of design documentaries by Gary Hustwit (his second, Objectified, opens at the IFC Center May 8). In a nice change of pace from the heavy topicality of most documentary fare, Helvetica takes a quotidian thing and examines it from every angle and in every context. Hustwit relies largely on the lettering itself to make his statement about the ubiquitous type, filling in the gaps with designers who explain the mass appeal of the font and the subliminal message it sends to consumers. At the screening, we’ll have some of those designers on hand to chat about the film and any other burning typography questions you have after viewing. And of course, all this banter will be had all the more easily with the assistance of $3 bottles of Navigator beer!

missgulagstillMay 14, 7:30 pm (doors): Beauties Behind Bars
LA CORONA
2007, Directed by Isabel Vega and Amanda Micheli, 40 mins
MISS GULAG
2007, Directed by Maria Yatskova, 65mins

Meet Miss Gulag and other beauty queens behind bars in our prison pageant double header! La Corona, nominated for the 2007 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject, is a beauty pageant like no other, and it happens every year in the women’s penitentiary in Bogotá, Colombia.The film follows four very different contestants as they vie for the title of prison beauty queen. As the competition nears and suspense builds, the women explain in their own words what brought each of them to this place and discuss the lives and loved ones they’ve left behind. Miss Gulag explores the individual destinies of three women coming of age in Post-Soviet Russia through the prism of a beauty pageant in a Siberian prison camp. For these women, undoubtedly, life is harsh under the constant surveillance of UF-91/9, but it is no less so on the outside. This is a story of survival told from both sides of the fence.

May 28, 7:30 pm (doors), 8 pm screening
THE ORDER OF MYTHS
ordermasksDirected by Margaret Brown
2008, 97 mins
Mobile, Alabama is home to the oldest Mardi Gras celebration in America — correction, the two oldest, as the town has completely segregated celebrations. In last year’s festival favorite, filmmaker Margaret Brown escorts us into her hometown and the parallel hearts of the city’s two carnivals to explore the complex contours of this hallowed tradition and the elusive forces that keep it organized along color lines.

In the spirit of carnival, we’ll also be getting sauced on $3 Stoli cocktails.