The actress actively is campaigning and constantly tweeting support, though not without controversy She angered Mitt Romney supporters by retweeting a quote calling him “racist” and “misogynistic” (She later deleted it and apologized).
Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria is hoping to push the plight of farm laborers to the top of the U.S. policy agenda with the release of Food Chains, an activist documentary that she executive produced and which has its world premiere Monday as part of the Berlin Film Festival’s Culinary Cinema sidebar. The film, directed by Sanjay Rawal, follows a group of tomato pickers in Florida – the Coalition of Immokalee Workers – who take on the $4 trillion global supermarket industry.
Despite her glam image, Longoria has been an outspoken advocate for farm workers rights for many years. “Long before I was famous,” the actress told THR. She has spoken to Congress and campaigned for fair work legislation for U.S. farmworkers. Longoria also produced the 2011 documentary Harvest, which looks at the fate of the hundreds of thousands of children that work as migrant laborers in the U.S. food industry.
“There’s more interest in food than ever before. Everyone is about organic and local and ‘I don’t eat Gluten.’ but no thought is put to the people who pick the food that feeds us all.”
Visit Films is handling worldwide sales of Food Chains and is presenting the documentary to buyers at Berlin’s European Film Market.
