Events

Hard To Swallow: A Food Show Not About Food

A cinema full of people staring at the screen with Hard to Swallow playing.

Test screening of Hard To Swallow, Los Angeles, 2024. Credit: Tyler Aryai.

Join us for a test screening of Hard To Swallow, an unreleased docuseries from Loeb Fellow Tunde Wey. Essayistic and reflexive, the series describes Wey’s career while examining the social structures that disenfranchise Black people globally. The 6-part docuseries premiered at CANNESERIES and SeriesFest in the spring of 2024 and will be released in 2025.

The screening will feature the pilot and finale episode (27 mins each), as well as a digital short, followed by a panel of Loeb Fellows discussing the broader themes of the episodes. The event will end with a Q&A with the filmmakers and a principal subject from the docuseries. The post-screening activities will be recorded, and attendees will receive a jar of spice featured in the show (while supplies last).

RSVP

Series Trailer

Episode and Film Descriptions

Film poster with two men looking at each other.

Digital Short: BABY GOT BANKRUPTCY
Baby Got Bankruptcy demystifies the complicated case and journey of Detroit’s bankruptcy, the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S history. Featuring one of the lead attorney’s on the case, the short is candid, cheeky and singular in its conclusion.

Scene in a kitchen with text: "Episode 1 This is Black People Shit" overlayed

Episode 1: THIS IS BLACK PEOPLE’S SHIT (Pilot)
Tunde reflects on the erasure of Black chefs from New Orleans’ food culture even as tourism and hospitality hold up the city’s economy. Tunde also examines how post-Katrina development, fueled by federal recovery dollars, drove gentrification in the city at the expense of Black New Orleanians. The expert for the episode is an award-winning journalist whose investigation of a food hall guides the episode, but when his interview takes an unexpected turn, the expert himself becomesthe subject of examination.

Cast of actors stand against a pink backdrop with text "You're in the Sun Now" overlayed.

Episode 6: YOU’RE IN THE SHOW NOW (Season Finale)
The season finale of Hard To Swallow centers on an allegation of racism at the show’s world premiere in Cannes. A week of extravagant dinners and dizzying photoshoots against the lush views of the French Riviera culminate in the red carpet premiere. The festivities continue into the premiere afterparty where things turn sour when members of the Hard To Swallow team are accosted. The fallout from the incident is intense, tedious, and thoroughly documented, but the understanding of the story is up for debate. Noone is safe in this project, as Theo’s motivations come into question and Tunde’s evolving perspective begins to contradict his prior statements.

Participants

Image of Tunde Wey with others in kitchen

Tunde Wey is a social practice artist living between Nigeria and the United States. Working at the intersection of capital and the political economy, Wey’s work engages material hierarchies and disparities, focusing particularly on how economics and finance impact working class Black people globally. 

 

Theo Schear HeadshotTheo Schear is a documentary filmmaker from Oakland, California. He was a 2021 SFFILM FilmHouse Resident and a member of Detroit Public Television’s National Documentary Unit. His writing has appeared in SFMOMA’s Open Space, Documentary Magazine, Nieman Lab, and Film Threat. 

 

Shana M. Griffin HeadshotShana M. Griffin is a feminist activist, researcher, sociologist, and artist. Her practice is interdisciplinary and engages history and memory as sites of resistance. griffin’s work challenges the violence of displacement, carcerality, reproductive control, climate impacts, and gender-based violence. 

 

Nikishka Iyengar HeadshotNikishka Iyengar is a social entrepreneur, working at the nexus of community development, racial and economic justice, and climate action. At The Guild, Nikishka develops community owned models of land, housing and real estate as a means to build self determination for Black and other communities of color, and poor and working class communities. 

 

Leanne Brady HeadshotLeanne Brady is a health systems activist and documentary filmmaker embedded in the public ambulance service in the Western Cape, South Africa. Her work combines storytelling and activism to grapple with the complex socio-political consequences of apartheid on public infrastructure, and the ongoing impact on health (in)equity.

 

Chef Jeff HeardChef Jeff Heard’s accession to business owner started with a dream long ago after 35 years in the restaurant and hospitality business. “I took a leap of faith on a desire to utilize God’s gifts bestowed on me.” Through prayer, hard work, and the love and support of his family, Heard Dat Kitchen was launched on March 1, 2015. Chef Jeff and family opened Heard Dat Kitchen with meals created at the intersection of home cooking and fine dining. The Heard Dat Kitchen concept is serving gourmet food to go. 

Harvard University welcomes individuals with disabilities to participate in its programs and activities. If you would like to request accommodations or have questions about the physical access provided, please contact the Public Programs Office at (617) 496-2414 or [email protected] in advance of your participation or visit. Requests for American Sign Language interpreters and/or CART providers should be made at least two weeks in advance. Please note that the University will make every effort to secure services, but that services are subject to availability.

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