Patterns, Interrupted

It's been 18 months since the last time I shared an update on behalf of Vittles Films. I needed the time to recover from bouts of burnout, manage family health issues (all good, amen), learn about wild fermentation and otherwise carry on in a nation increasingly hostile toward free cultural expression.

The first Vittles feature FARMER/VETERAN was made possible by the Corporation For Public Broadcasting, which is now shuttered as part of 1.1 billion in cuts. The budget impacts or rural radio stations are increasingly grim. Political cruelty is taking many forms materially and physiologically. The sight of masked, fully-armed brutes terrorizing communities in North Carolina this week was another whole level.

We must reassert our humanity.

I believe in the documentary practice as a tool for bearing witness, telling rural Southern stories, and building resilience. Vittles stretches me thin—always has—but it also connects me to people doing the same work. That's where the renewal lives.

So then, allow me to introduce /FIELD NOTES—what I'm seeing and learning as the work unfolds. Monthly (or more when it’s moving), I’ll lift the lid for behind-the-scenes looks at GERMAN SOUL and other projects in development, conversations with collaborators, and things I find nourishing along the way.

It's all part of trying to interrupt tired patterns. One piece of that: stopping giving my best work to billionaire-owned platforms for free. Some of you receiving this attended a Vittles screening or played a game of Chick Sh!t Bingo. Many of you signed up for Vittles updates nearly a decade ago, thank you. If this version is not for you anymore, it’s all good—unsubscribe link is below. Into the fields.

This Friday night, November 21st, I'll be at Cucalorus Film Festival in Wilmington presenting German Soul—a live documentary experience I've been developing with my longtime collaborator, Grammy-winning musician and deeply curious ethnobotanist Justin Robinson.

You may know Justin from the Carolina Chocolate Drops or the recent duet album What Did the Blackbird Say with former bandmate Rhiannon Giddens. German Soul is his reckoning with a harder question: When our most sacred recipes tell inconvenient truths, do we have the courage to listen?

It's film. It's music. It's tasting and questioning and sitting with discomfort.

This morning, Port City Daily published a piece about the project, and Justin described the work this way: "This is almost like learning your grandfather, who you love dearly, isn't your biological grandfather."

That's the feeling we're sitting with—grief and discovery tangled up together.

I know most of you are in the Triangle, two hours away, and this Friday is short notice. But if you can make it, tickets are still available and you'll have a lot to think about on the drive back. Also Cucalorus is hands down the most fun film festival in the state: this year features BUTTER RODEO?!

If you can’t Cucalorus, here's another invitation: reply with an answer to this question: Have you ever felt like the food you grew up with didn't quite match who you are?

We're collecting these stories to shape how German Soul shows up in 2026. Even if you don't hit reply, just sitting with that question is enough.

Because here's the other pattern I'm trying to interrupt: the indie doc model is unsustainable. Make a film, premiere at a festival, chase distribution, hope someone watches it on a platform that pays nothing, rinse and repeat.

So we're building German Soul as something else—a vertical, not a horizontal. Not one film chasing diminishing returns, but a platform for real engagement over time and mediums.

Fewer people, deeper connection. That's the bet.

The structure is still forming, and I'll share the experiments as they happen—what works, what doesn't, who's making it possible. Your thoughts are welcome.

If all that sounds exciting and you’re in a position to give—consider helping us close a $6K gap in hard costs heading into the winter. Donations are tax-deductible through Southern Documentary Fund. Every bit helps us down the road.

Slowing down to feel the season shift, knees under a big shared table between the pines. It’s the dreamy scene stuff of Our State magazine, but then Gabrielle Carter, who you may know from The Seeds We Keep, brought in the voices of railroad workers singing through the hardships of laying down the tracks that still run through Apex, leading to John Henry and his love for sweet Polly. This with the put up peaches, turkey necks, and savory, tender cabbage slowed all sense of time and left an indelible glow of smiling faces around the bonfire. Love to the entire Revival Suppers team, stay tuned for their next dinner.

I heard this tune driving down a winding backroad after consulting with a doc film team about a sprawling project following the multiracial working class organizing of Down Home NC. It was a day spent in classic story shaping—scene postcards on the wall, big arc questions, an ensemble of characters. Hearing Andrew Marlin sing about how our established rituals no longer serve us when circumstances change felt like kismet.

Thanks for still being here—or for just arriving. Either way, I'm glad we're at this little table together. If any of this sparked something—a memory, a question, a story about food and belonging—hit reply. I read everything.

You'll hear from me again in a couple weeks with news from Cucalorus.

Until next time, keep well, love plenty.

— DLA