Fresh Hemp Foods Limited The Company

I’ve lived in Montreal for most of my life but spent four years in New York City in the early 90s attending NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts where I graduated with an honours BFA in film and television production.

It was in the Big Apple that a friend named Zed told me all about a certain plant called hemp. I was immediately piqued by the plant’s unparalleled versatility and started my hemp quest by purchasing my very first hemp/cotton T-shirt. The rest of my friend’s hemp message lay dormant in my subconscious for many years as I got distracted getting my filmmaking career off the ground. (More on my hemp quest later.)

Since film school - under the banner of my production company Perpetuum Productions - I have produced and/or directed documentaries and series for television, including:

Man Of Grease - Hour-long documentary about Tony Koulakis, quirky and charismatic owner and chef of famous Montreal greasy-spoon Cosmos; 2001 Quebec Jutra nomination for Best Documentary; played on numerous TV networks

Tree Weeks - Hour-long CBC Newsworld TV documentary about the legions of Quebec Christmas tree sellers in NYC; co-directed by Adam Steinman

Cod Help Us - NFB documentary about St. Paul’s River, a struggling fishing village on Quebec’s Lower North Shore

Pressure Drop - Short 16mm comedy about a grandfather who resorts to a doctor-prescribed medical marijuana treatment to save his vision from acute glaucoma; co-directed by Marc Ostrick; NYU Warner Bros. Pictures Production Award; baked on a true story

Dogs With Jobs - TV series on Life Network about working dogs; directed three episodes

Past Lives - TV series on Global about Canadians and their genealogical journeys; directed six episodes

Au Courant - TV series on CBC Newsworld hosted by Mitsou about life in French Canada; segment producer for 23 episodes

Cirque du Soleil: The Fire Within - TV series on Bravo about the creation of the Cirque du Soleil show Varekai; co-director of two episodes

Posthumous Pickle Party - TV documentary about Simcha Leibovich, owner of Montreal’s legendary, now-defunct corner grocery on St. Laurent Boulevard; co-produced with Matt Zimbel

To date, my film and TV productions have played at over 30 film festivals worldwide and have appeared on outlets including CBC, CBC Newsworld, CTV, RDI, Société Radio-Canada, Global, TV5-France, TVOntario, CBC Country Canada, National Geographic, Life Network Canada, Air Canada, NFB Citizenshift and Oprah.

In 2004, I co-founded and served as co-director of the Montreal Film Group, an active networking group now comprising over 1000 Montreal film and TV industry producers, directors, animators, actors, technicians and more.

In 2007, I was hired by the Pop Montreal music festival to co-produce Film Pop, its film festival division that takes place each October.

I am currently also serving as the Director of CinemaSpace and ArtLounge, the upcoming 77-seat HD screening room and lounge at Montreal’s Segal Centre for the Performing Arts at The Saidye.

In early 2007, I created Hemp For The Homeless, a philanthropic/ecological endeavour that distributed 50 ‘Hemp Help Kits’ (hemp tote bags filled with hemp food, beauty products and clothing) to various homeless shelters and homeless individuals on the streets of Montreal. The project - generously supported in part by Manitoba Harvest - was profiled by CBC radio and the Montreal Gazette.

In addition to making films and TV shows, I am also an avid street photographer (with over 25,000 images in my archive), songwriter (currently working on my fourth country-folk CD: this one a collaboration with my old friend Dylan Silverstein), poem-jotter, drawing-drawer, Ez Sez blogger and I’m also known as a bit of an idea guy. Back in the day, I was Bialik High School Student Council co-president as well as Yiddish valedictorian.

I love life and love the fact that in 2005 - over 10 years after my friend Zed tipped me off to hemp - I began delving deeper into hemp research and became enlightened to the fact that something as healthy, durable, versatile, timely and timeless as hemp exists.

I wear almost exclusively hemp-fabric clothing day in and day out, finding these items on trips I take to visit friends, shoot films or take street photographs. Sure, these clothes may cost a bit more, but they often last longer and usually come in styles that are more distinctive than the average clothing company’s products. Hemp clothing is also more UV protective, anti-fungal, wicks sweat better, grown without pesticides, requires less water to grow and process and feels great on the skin.

I recently bumped into Woody Harrelson on a trip to New York and we talked shop on the hemp clothing we were wearing. We were neck and neck until he one-upped me with his organic cotton underwear. (I was wearing but a pair of conventional briefs that day, having exhausted my supply of hemp boxers earlier in the trip.)

A note on hemp being called a ‘miracle plant’ or being touted as being able to ‘save the planet’:

As incredible as it is, I realize that hemp may not save our troubled planet. But if anything other than determination and hard work can achieve a great deal of progress… hemp’s likely to be just the thing. I’d encourage you to learn more about this plant and to use it and share it. If you like what it brings you, perhaps encourage your family, friends and colleagues to do the same. Here’s to a better world.

Finally, though I realize it’s preaching to the choir, I invite you to enjoy a happy handful of hemp today.

See where it takes you.

(And if it leads to the same place I’m at, we can share yet another handful together and have fuel enough to get us both back to from whence we came.)

I am truly honoured to be Manitoba Harvest’s very first official ‘Hemp Fuelled Filmmaker’ and perhaps the world’s first too.

Ez Sez: “Lights, camera, hemp action!”

The Manitoba Harvest ‘dish’:

Ezra is known to enjoy a tablespoon of organic Manitoba Harvest hemp oil in his morning orange juice; shelled hemp seeds (hemp nuts) in his ‘super-organical Ez-concoction’ custom breakfast cereal mix; Vanilla or Original Hemp Bliss hempmilk in said cereal concoction; Hemp Bliss in his organic herbal teas; shelled hemp seeds on his salads and sandwiches and last butter not least: delicious Manitoba Harvet hemp nut butter on hot, fresh Montreal bagels or on the city’s best organic multigrain sourdough bread from his beloved local co-op.

Since 2000, Ezra no longer eats any ‘walking meats’ (chicken, beef, lamb, etc.) but if he were too, say at gunpoint or for a million bucks if someone had cash to burn they’d like be served hemp-encrusted. Ezra Aryeh Soiferman (in case you cared to know his full name) is also reputed to make a freakin’ fantastic peanut-butter/banana/hemp-and-literally-everything-but-the-kitchen-sink smoothie.

The Ez Sez blog can be found at: http://www.EzSez.com

Ezra’s full filmmaking bio and contact information can be found at: http://www.MontrealFilmGroup.com/ezra.html

Ezra’s Hemp For The Homeless project:

http://tinyurl.com/2oqq7d

Ezra’s extensive “Hemp Facts” page can be found at his old NYU friend Zed’s site: http://hempfarm.org/Papers/Hemp_Facts.html

Ez Sez: Your lucky numbers are: 1, 13, 99 and 657,841 plus tax, plus tip.