"'Gather” Film Screening and Panel
Trinity Larsen | Nov. 25, 2025
On November 20, a film screening of “Gather” was hosted in Boon Hall room 110 for students hoping to learn more about food sovereignty–a system where people prioritize culturally significant foods in a certain area–and how we can reclaim our relationship with food, specifically in Indigenous culture. The film showing included a panel of experts.
The 2020 film documentary began by exploring food droughts located in Northern California and the impact it had on the White Mountain Apache tribe residing there. Chef Nephi Criag is introduced as an Apache tribe member who cooks food locally grown in northern California for his Cherokee neighbors. Criag explains, “It was never organic, it was just food to us.” His focus in the film is teaching Indigenous people how he will address food sovereignty by opening his own restaurant featuring Cherokee food.
Twila Cassadore is a forager who, throughout the film, advocates for food security among the Apache community. We also follow Elsie DuBray, whose grandfather is the owner of acres of Cherokee land and which is a home for wild buffalo. In the film, Elsie enters her high school science fair with the project of comparing the health benefits of grass-fed buffalo and grain-fed buffalo.
How foods are being reintroduced to Cherokee people and their children – the foods of their heritage, grown from the soil they stand on – is one of the major topics explored and is a conclusion to the film.
After the 1-hour and 14-minute film, moderator Izzy Brown, a junior at Warren Wilson, asked panelists questions about preserving the culture of Cherokee food in the southeast and their mindset regarding education around food.
Mark Williams, alumnus of Warren Wilson’s agricultural program and husband of chef Nico Albert Williams, answered Brown’s question on preserving food culture by saying, “Looking at Permaculture–the development of self-sufficient ecosystems- and our adaptability.”
Tony VanWinkle, a new Professor of Sustainable Agriculture at Warren Wilson, agreed with William’s point and added that we as a region should be focusing on helping the environment in patches rather than individual plants.
Visiting Cherokee tribe member Albert Williams, founder of Burning Cedar Sovereign Wellness, was a jazz dancer before becoming a chef, until she saw the impact her cooking had on her Cherokee culture. Albert Williams commented on how audience members can be stewards of the land and self-teach ourselves about its resources.
“I hope we can reintroduce the idea of industrializing small amounts of dozens of produce rather than a dozen of the same crop because society functions in the opposite way, by capitalizing on overproduction and in doing so harming our environment and the consumer,” Albert Williams said.
“Food embeds itself into our culture more than films or books,” Williams said when referring to the question of food education. Rather than just looking at a film like “Gather” on how best to take action to protect the culture of the Cherokee, he advised the audience to look beyond the theoretical and into the functions of the land beneath our feet when advocating for Indigenous voices.
Albert Williams closed out the panel by saying she strives to “feed people rather than sell people food.” By feeding people, she is building a community of people that will look to her food and the food of her ancestors as a significant indicator of her culture. It will be something that is passed down through generations. “Your existence alone is activism,” Albert Williams said.
When asked why it was important to her that she visit Warren Wilson to discuss and demonstrate the food culture of the Cherokee, Nico Albert Wiliams said, “I connect more with Indigenous people when I talk with them, but you guys understand what I’m talking about a little more than they have because you’ve been exposed to these kinds of topics before.”
Albert Williams said there was a different passion in Warren Wilson students about the topics she'd been invited to talk about, which she appreciated.
While the film “Gather” looks inside the food sovereignty of the Apache tribe, the panel discussion afterward further explained how students and faculty can continue to spread awareness of Indigenous peoples’ food in the local community.