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Shelby native puts asparagus on the big screen
SHELBY, Mich. (AP)--Kirsten Kelly says asparagus has always been part of her identity, even when she left for the big city in search of a career in theater.
Whenever anyone asked her about her roots, she spoke of the tender shoots.
"I always told them I was from the asparagus capital of the nation," Kelly said. "There really are a lot of amazing things about asparagus."
Kelly grew up on an asparagus farm outside Shelby, the daughter of Pete and Darlene Kelly, who also grow cherries and apples.
In June 2003, Kelly put aside professional theater projects, and her day job in a bookshop in New York City and decided to go home for a while to make a documentary about the vegetable.
She called it "Asparagus! Stalking the American Life."
This was no amateur home video attempt. She and Anne de Mare, the film's co-producer and co-director also from New York City, formed Spargel Productions and raised $130,000 to fund the documentary. A little trivia: Spargel is the German word for asparagus.
With a two-person filming crew in tow, de Mare and Kelly interviewed farmers, townspeople, National Asparagus Festival personnel and Mrs. Asparagus contenders.
They attended the Asparagus Festival parade, went into the fields and, later in the project, even traveled to Washington to talk with the U.S. secretary of agriculture about trade policies that affect the price of U.S.-grown asparagus.
As she worked, Kelly discovered something important about the place she grew up.
"Going away and coming back, I got the perspective of what asparagus means to the community. Aside from it being an important crop--how important it is to the identity of Oceana County," she told The Muskegon Chronicle for a story Jan. 30.
Michigan is third in the nation in asparagus production, with about 15,000 acres harvested annually.
The documentary has taken longer to complete than either Kelly or de Mare anticipated, but they debuted a 15-minute presentation in June 2004 during the National Asparagus Festival.
On Jan. 29 during the Muskegon Film Festival, Kelly will show "never before seen" scenes and other footage of the work still in progress.
She said she and de Mare hope to finish the 90-minute-long documentary in September so it will be eligible for next year's "big film festivals" in New York City, Toronto, Los Angeles and one of the most famous festivals of all: Sundance in Park City, Utah.
Date: 2/24/05
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