Weed and Wine
Hélène Thibon and her son grow grapes on her family’s centuries-old French vineyard, while Kevin Jodrey—a cannabis farmer in California’s Humboldt County—schools his son in the artisan culture emerging in his newly legal industry. WEED & WINE interweaves their stories, showcasing the ways in which the two very different farmers navigate a common challenge: how to survive on the land?
Runtime : 89 mins
Released : 2023
Weed and Wine Film Synopsis: Continents apart from one another, two farming families aim to reinvent themselves on their land. One family—a strong-willed French matriarch and the son she raised among her vines—tends a centuries-old, biodynamic vineyard in the Southern Rhône. Across the ocean in Humboldt, California, another family—a brash father and his more reserved son—carefully manage a state-recognized, organic cannabis farm.
The feature documentary WEED & WINE interweaves their stories, urging comparisons and teasing out contradictions between France’s revered winemaking traditions and the artisan culture emerging alongside the legal cannabis industry.
“This fascinating tale of two families… I gotta admit, I had my doubts when I read the synopsis on this one, but I was pleasantly surprised by Rebecca Richman Cohen’s insightful examination of the commitment and personal strength needed to weather the turbulent times. It’s a gem.” —Randy Myers, The San Jose Mercury News
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The Filmmaker: Rebecca Richman Cohen
Rebecca is an Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker and, since 2011, a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School.
Her directorial debut, WAR DON DON (HBO), won the Special Jury Prize at the SXSW Film Festival and was nominated for two Emmy Awards.
Salon called her second feature, CODE OF THE WEST (America ReFramed), “one of the best movies about America’s drug war.”
In 2016 she produced UNTOUCHABLE, which won the Albert Maysles New Documentary Director Award at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Rebecca was profiled in Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces in Independent Film as an “up-and-comer poised to shape the next generation of independent film.” She is the founder and principal at Racing Horse Productions.
In addition to Harvard, she has taught classes at RISD, American University’s Human Rights Institute, and Columbia University. She was a 2012 Soros Justice Fellow, a 2015 Fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, and a 2019 fellow at Harvard’s Film Study Center.
Rebecca graduated from Brown University and Harvard Law School.
Discover more about the film Weed & Wine.