"The oversized, obstinate title character in Vladimir Radunsky's latest picture book, The Mighty Asparagus (Harcourt/Silver Whistle, May), surely lives up to this appellation," writes Sally Lodge in Publisher's Weekly. It refuses to budge when a king, queen, princess and even the ruler's rhino try to remove it after it suddenly appears on the monarch's lawn. And as the subject of a forthcoming documentary film, Asparagus! (Stalking the American Life), it has consumed the lives of two filmmakers for nearly two years. The vegetable clearly has drawing power."

Anne de Mare and Kirsten Kelly's feature-length film Asparagus! "takes viewers to the small town of Oceana, Michigan, the self-proclaimed asparagus capital of the world. After 30 years, Oceana is facing the destruction of its farming base because of a little known provision in a trade bill resulting from the 'war on drugs' [which has inadvertently created a a strong Peruvian asparagus competitor]. Faced with economic ruin and the loss of their beloved vegetable, the community decides to fight back."

The filmmakers were recently awarded $5,000 in seed money from American Documentary, Inc., producer of the PBS documentary series P.O.V., as the winners of its first emerging filmmaker award at the popular workshop "The Art of the Documentary Pitch" at the annual Television Documentary Festival at the Museum of Television and Radio in New York.

The directors expect to debut the film at the National Asparagus Festival... "We'll roll out the green carpet," says Kelly, "and see who comes!" After that, "we plan to go to Sundance and bring a busload of folks from Oceana dressed as asparagus if we need to."
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# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 4/29/2005 09:59:00 AM

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