INTERVIEW: A author, director, and director of pictures, Jordan Berger is the founding father of Sunflower Movies, a manufacturing firm in Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA. He’s at present finishing manufacturing on ONE PLANT, a documentary about hemp’s potential to handle a variety of urgent world challenges. He additionally heads up Head River Farms, an natural hemp and veggie farm in Apison, Tennessee.
HempToday: What’s the inspiration for the movie?
Jordan Berger: After seeing my mom undergo a lifetime of alcoholism and opioid dependancy, I grew a ardour for the facility of plant-based medicines – particularly hashish as a pure answer that would assist. In 2019 I began a hemp farm to make my very own CBD merchandise for my mother. Sadly, earlier than I used to be capable of harvest my first crop, my mother handed away in 2019. Having began this journey with hashish, I had grown to imagine within the plant and the way it may assist folks.
Once I realized extra concerning the plant, I noticed medication was solely a part of the story. This plant has been a key ally to people all through recorded historical past, used for medication, meals, textiles, shelter, vitality, and extra. Now for the primary time in almost a century, the plant stands to make a comeback. Once we suppose hemp or hashish we expect medication. I need to change that. I need to make a movie that helps to normalize hashish and opens eyes to the good profit the plant can deliver to all of us.
HT: What was essentially the most stunning factor you realized all through the analysis and making of the movie?
JB: In all probability simply the sheer quantity of issues the plant can do. I knew it may do loads, however this plant will proceed to shock you. Whether or not you’re fiber, grain or flower, there are unbelievable developments occurring throughout all cannabis-based industries.
HT: The movie is popping out at one thing of a low-water mark for hemp, after the CBD craze and crash, and a whole lot of contraction within the sector. What sort of marker will the movie be? What can it say about the way forward for hemp as a enterprise?
JB: I feel we’re in a bizarre place the place the general public nonetheless doesn’t perceive what this plant can do for humanity. The dearth of regulation on cannabinoid hemp on the FDA’s half has created a complicated market supporting the outdated views that hashish and hemp are only for getting excessive. You see each fuel station and strip mall promoting an entire host of “authorized hashish” merchandise aimed toward giving folks a buzz. Many aren’t pure in any respect and may be fairly harmful. It’s a disgrace as a result of it’s giving the entire plant a nasty look.
Nonetheless, I imagine as soon as folks begin studying what the plant can do for local weather change, wholesome meals programs, and the way highly effective of a medication it may be when used correctly, they are going to open their minds. I imagine the way forward for industrial hemp and medical hashish is shiny. Our movie showcases the seemingly limitless potentialities of the plant from constructing your home and the automobile you drive, to treating a bunch of illnesses and illnesses by means of interplay with our personal physique’s endocannabinoid system. This plant has traditionally been an ideal ally to our species and it’s right here to do it once more. Individuals merely need to study extra concerning the plant’s advantages and the great it could possibly deliver to every of our lives.
HT: What viewers had been you considering of whenever you conceived the movie, and all through its manufacturing?
JB: From the start, I’ve sought to make a movie for the on a regular basis individual. I by no means needed to make a movie catered to marijuana folks or stoner tradition. As a substitute, I think about a movie for folk who care about their well being or the setting, or folks simply making an attempt to do higher on this world. This plant has a variety of makes use of and functions and I hope, subsequently, the viewers can mirror that vary.
HT: Describe the response thus far to the trailer, and the Kickstarter marketing campaign.
JB: We’ve had an amazing quantity of help following the discharge of our new trailer and Kickstarter marketing campaign. It’s been superior feeling the love from folks you’ve by no means met. It’s a confidence enhance for certain.
HT: Apart from financing, what are the opposite challenges that face unbiased filmmakers today?
JB: Making a movie is tough, there’s no approach round it. We’ve been at it for two+ years as a “facet job” as we proceed to run our manufacturing firm in Tennessee. Immediately I’d say one of many largest challenges with a documentary like that is maintaining the momentum. It has taken extra time than anticipated and we’ve needed to pause manufacturing at a number of factors. It’s all about remaining creatively excited concerning the challenge and typically that’s laborious when it’s important to pause for a month or two at a time.
HT: You’ve described your crew as “lean and agile.” What sort of folks do you search for in placing a group collectively to sort out a challenge?
JB: A challenge with restricted funding like this requires everybody concerned to put on a number of hats. You need folks you may rely on who don’t get too flustered when one thing new is thrown their approach. Everybody on the ONE PLANT group embraces this agile strategy wanted when making a movie involving actual life. A challenge like this requires many hours with the identical folks so that you higher get pleasure from hanging round them. Fortunately the fellows which have helped me on this are additionally a few of my greatest associates.
HT: What stays to be achieved to complete the movie? When is it scheduled for launch?
JB: At this level, 90% of the footage has been shot and we’re near having a full tough reduce of the movie. We’ll start getting outdoors suggestions and make any mandatory adjustments earlier than ending with sound, coloration, and rating/music. We count on to be modifying the movie by means of February 2025 after which instantly start submitting it to movie festivals. We count on a full launch within the second half of 2025.
Berger’s crew has traveled far and huge to assemble footage for the documentary.
