SANDORKRAUT SCRIPT (NYT OPENING CREDITS to be added?) TEXT CARD “Sandor Katz shows you why an act as practical as making your own sauerkraut represents nothing less than a way of engaging with the world.” Michael Pollan Food Author and Activist Hands open a heavy barrel of sauerkraut and begin to scoop it out into jars. Closeup of Sandor Katz. Sandor Katz So then this part is very, very technical. (laughs) Digging it out with my hands, ooh, this stuff is cold . . . Various closeups of Sandor’s hands jarring sauerkraut. He smooths the surface of the kraut in the barrel. Sandor Katz (VO) It was just my own private obsession for years that I mean, I shared with the people around me. That’s why they started calling me Sandorkraut, ‘cause I was always showing up with sauerkraut and other fermented things . . . Sandor replaces the barrel lid. TEXT CARD Sandor Katz is a self-described fermentation fetishist. Sandor picks up the jars of kraut and leaves the room. TEXT CARD His book The Art of Fermentation became a New York Times bestseller. Sandor crushes soybeans in an old-fashioned hand grinder in his basement. Sandor Katz (VO) And I just loved sharing my excitement about sauerkraut with people, inviting people in . . . Sandor pulls finished cakes of tempeh out of his oven and slices them. Sandor Katz (VO) I started keeping a sourdough and making miso, I learned how to make tempeh . . . Montage of objects in Sandor’s kitchen and closeups of Sandor frying the tempeh. Sandor chews a bite. Sandor Katz Mmm. Nothing like fresh tempeh. Montage of fresh vegetables and fermented foods on Sandor’s table and photos on his fridge. Sandor Katz (VO) All of these processes are thousands of years old, and definitely each batch is unique and individual. That’s one of the things that’s cool about it. MAIN TITLE SANDORKRAUT Montage of rural environment and Sandor’s home. TEXT CARD Woodbury, Tennessee Sandor exits his house and enters a large fenced garden in his yard. Sandor Katz (VO) Our gardening season really has passed, but . . . He pulls a huge leek from the ground and shakes off the dirt. Sandor Katz . . . this is a leek. (laughs) Montage of Sandor pulling up leeks and black radishes as his dogs watch. Sandor Katz Oh yeah, look, this one is giant, this is like the size of a baby’s head. LOWER THIRD Sandor Katz Fermentation Revivalist Sandor Katz interview in his home What is fermentation? Um, broadly speaking, fermentation is the transformative action of microorganisms. But then there’s a further caveat. Sandor in his garden, standing by a pile of compost. Sandor Katz You guys want to see my compost pile? (chuckles) Montage of rotting vegetables plopping on the pile, Sandor turning the compost, shots of the winter garden, wild plants and corn cobs on the ground. Sandor Katz (VO) You know, not every transformative action of 3microorganisms results in something delicious that we want to put into our mouths. Certainly humans didn’t invent fermentation, and I would even argue that humans didn’t discover fermentation because fermentation happens spontaneously. On all raw plant material, there’s already lactic acid bacteria, on all fruit that you could make wine out of, there’s already yeast. Sandor shakes straw onto the compost pile. He walks back into his house and selects a black radish from a bowl on his table. Sandor Katz (VO) You know, the human cultural accomplishment is that we created vessels and make these processes happen kind of on our own terms. Montage of different jars of food and ferments in the kitchen and Sandor washing the radish. He places a cutting board on the table and retrieves a cabbage. Sandor Katz (VO) Bread and miso and sauerkraut and wine, it’s so vast and infinite. And then the fact that these foods are produced by these sort of invisible life forces, these microorganisms just adds this mysticism and alchemy to the whole thing. Sandor sets the cabbage down on the cutting board to chop. A montage set to a Bach cello suite ensues of Sandor preparing sauerkraut. Shots of Sandor preparing chopping different colors of cabbage, grating turmeric and radish, sprinkling salt and massaging it into the vegetables are intercut with different artworks and personal objects in Sandor’s house. He stuffs the vegetables into a jar with a wooden mallet and screws on the lid. NEW LOCATION. Montage of shops and road signs in Woodbury, TN. Sandor walks into the basement garage of a friend’s home. Sandor Katz Hey. Friend (offscreen) How you doin’? Sandor Katz Good. Sandor flips on the light, revealing a colorful mural on the walls, and begins searching through a large pile of boxes underneath the basement stairs. Sandor Katz You can see I’ve got lots of crocks . . . and now I need some big spoons . . . Sandor continues rummaging and collecting things he needs, intercut with vessels of wine in the basement. Sandor Katz interview in basement This is where for the last five years I’ve been teaching workshops, um, you know, not continuously but several times a year. I’ll get groups of um, you know, twelve to eighteen people and we’ll have, you know, kind of an intensive fermentation experience here. TEXT CARD Sandor teaches workshops around the world. Sandor looks for something on a shelf. Sandor Katz Oh, there it is. He pulls out a large plastic tub covered with a burlap bag, carries it to his car, and buckles it into the back seat. Montage of mural on the wall as Sandor searches a refrigerator. Sandor Katz Oh nice, look, I’ve got lots of yogurt here. He packs the yogurt and other items into a box, muttering. Sandor Katz A scissor . . . great! Sandor flips off the lights in the basement. Sandor Katz (VO) You know, I had spent most of my life in New York City. I just imagined that New York would always be my home. I was a, um . . . Sandor Katz interview in his home . . . a policy analyst in the Manhattan Borough President’s office. INSERT: Photo of a younger Sandor, wearing a sticker protesting Dinkins’ exclusion of LGBT teachers. Sandor Katz (INTV) But like, a big thing happened to me in 1991, which is that I tested HIV positive. And that really just sort of you know, threw my career ambitions and my interest in municipal government um, just for a loop. Montage of Sandor driving down a beautiful rural road as he narrates. SANDOR KATZ (VO, cutting to interview in home) I knew a lot of people who were living with HIV, so I wasn’t really thinking like ‘oh my god, I have two years to live and everything’s gonna be over,’ it’s just that it really sh-shifted my sense of priorities in life. Sandor continues driving as light illuminates the road. SANDOR KATZ (VO) It led me into a little bit of a spiritual quest. INSERT: Photo of younger Sandor in a crowd. Sandor continues driving past a barn. SANDOR KATZ (VO) Randomly, you know, I went with my roommates down to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, we met people who lived in this queer community in Tennessee that was very intriguing to me . . . SANDOR KATZ interview in home . . . and I started talking to them about how to move down there. NEW LOCATION: Shots of a rustic wooden home set deep in the woods. Sandor walks around the yard as his friend LEOPARD sorts through a log pile. LOWER THIRD: Walnut Ridge Sandor’s new teaching space Sandor Katz (VO) The community that we moved to 20 years ago, I mean, they were really, really roughing it. Sandor Katz and Leopard joint interview in yard, intercut with shots of trees on property. Sandor Katz For seventeen years I lived by the light of candles, um, at night. Leopard (VO) It’s a magical place, in many ways. INSERT: Photo of younger Sandor and Leopard with a wheelbarrow full of freshly pulled garlic. Sandor Katz (VO) It stayed very romantic. Leopard joint interview Yeah. Life is ah, dictated by the seasons a lot, so . . . LOWER THIRD Leopard Homesteader Leopard joint interview . . . that’s a really unusual place to find yourself and I like that. INSERT: Photo of younger Sandor with sauerkraut crock. Sandor Katz (VO) And you know, I made the first sauerkraut that I made in a crock that I found in the barn. Um, so you know, the hippies that preceded us by 20 years . . . Sandor Katz and Leopard joint interview . . . they were, they were playing around with fermentation too, they just didn’t write a book about it. Sandor and Leopard laugh and as Sandor leans back, the bench he is seated on breaks. Sandor Katz Ooh! (both men laugh harder) On an outdoor table at Walnut Ridge, Sandor opens the plastic tub he brought from the garage, revealing a miso crock. He pulls off a plate that is protecting the ferment’s surface and begins scraping it clean. Sandor Katz I used to open up miso crocks kind of in private, in secret . . . I was embarrassed at how ugly they were, but they’re always this ugly. Sandor removes the detritus around the edges of the crock with his hands and begins filling up jars of miso with a spoon. Shots of him filling jars, tasting the miso, screwing on caps, and contemplating his work are intercut with the interview below. Sandor Katz (VO and interview in his home) We each are the hosts to, you know, these extraordinarily elaborate microbial communities. There is a certain inevitability to microbial change . . . you know, when, when all things die, all of that stuff decomposes by the action of fermentation. So I think fermentation’s very closely related to, to death, and . . . I don’t know, you know, personally, I don’t find that a scary aspect of death at all. The scary aspect of death for me is that I don’t get to sort of like, you know, see the people I know as children now grow up and, and get old, and, and sort of see the, you know, the next installment of the movie or something. Um, but you know, the idea of bacteria decomposing my body I actually find weirdly comforting. Sandor leans in the doorway of Walnut Ridge and contemplates the woods for a moment. He walks into the back yard and inspects a patch of ground. Sandor Katz Oh good, the garlic did survive. Leopard sorts through the woodpile nearby. Sandor Katz Are you separating out the stuff that’s too big? Leopard I am. Sandor Katz Yeah. Yeah, great, great, great. Montage of Walnut Ridge - a dog running by the front door, piles of boards for construction inside and out, Sandor wandering into the kitchen, Leopard mulling around. Sandor Katz (VO) We are repurposing this 1820’s log cabin, then I’ll be teaching intensive fermentation classes and probably having some sort of apprenticeship program. Sandor Katz interview in Walnut Ridge kitchen My school I’ve been calling the Foundation for Fermentation Fervor so . . . I think it’ll be fun. Sandor walks out of Walnut Ridge, carrying a jar of sauerkraut. LOCATION CHANGE: Shots of Sandor returning home in the late afternoon and crushing peppercorns in a mortar as the evening comes. He pats a leg of venison dry on the kitchen table and begins to sprinkle pepper over it. A traditional folk song about sauerkraut plays. Sandor Katz (VO) Right now we’re in a moment when people are earnestly seeking to you know, become more connected to their food and where it comes from and reclaim some of the processes that their grandparents were doing that they never learned how to do. Sandor wraps the leg of venison in muslin. He ties it with string and holds it up, showing it off. Sandor Katz (VO) There’s just a growing interest in fermentation because of that and I love to share it with people. INSERT: Photo montage of Sandor teaching a workshop, watching students make sauerkraut, and hugging some of the participants. Sandor walks into a cave-like root cellar in his back yard, carrying the venison. Sandor Katz interview in home I also think there is a spiritual component where, you know, there’s just a hunger to be more connected to the earth and the environment and other forms of life around us. Sandor wanders deeper into his backyard with his dogs and cat. He approaches a creek nearby and squats down beside it. Sandor Katz (VO) In my own experience, getting involved in a garden and cultivating the magic of microorganisms has really made me feel more connected to creatures large and small that I have interactions with. Sandor pets his cat by the creek. His dogs run through the water, startling the cat away. Sandor laughs. TEXT CARD Walnut Ridge opened in 2014. Credits play over a long shot of Sandor with his animals. TEXT CARD Produced & Directed by Emily Lobsenz & Ann Husaini TEXT CARD Written & Edited by Ann Husaini & Emily Lobsenz TEXT CARD Cinematographer Craig Marsden TEXT CARD Sound Design and Mix Matt Boynton Vacation Island Recording TEXT CARD Title Design Prashant Bhargava Colorist Karla Carballar TEXT CARD Music provided by MIBE Music Original Songs J.S. Bach “Cello Suite #2” Negroazulado “La Mitad” Riley Puckett “Sauerkraut” TEXT CARD Special Thanks Kate Berry Kirsten Bradley Jen Cox Anna Holtzman Leopard Giles Lyon Craig Marsden Milkwood Permaculture TEXT CARD Special Thanks Sandor Katz TEXT CARD Copyright 2014 Daggewood Films SisterReal