Take a trip around the world as various people harvest mushrooms to sell in the US West. The 2022 film Up on the Mountain follows Southeast Asian refugees, Latino immigrants, and rural white Americans and their collective journey in Pacific Northwest forests to collect wild mushrooms. The Food Studies Program hosts a screening of the film 4pm Thursday, Feb. 15, in McKenzie 229.
Set in the lush landscapes of Montana, Idaho, and Oregon, Up on the Mountain highlights the social inequities in who controls natural resources policies, as well as the labor and resourcefulness of the communities that depend on mushroom harvesting.
"My hope is for the film to educate the public about the workers who harvest wild mushrooms for the restaurants of the world," Olivier Matthon wrote in a director's statement. "I hope to spark conversations about re-designing forest management policies that would take into account mushrooms as a species, mushroom harvesters as legitimate forest workers, and provide better access to public forests for people of color."