The Emerald Triangle

The Emerald Triangle explores the world’s favorite illegal drug, how it became legal, and its impact on our culture. Focusing on the heartland of cannabis, it tells the story of the original growers and how they survived everything… except legalization. “We won. But we lost, because they legalized it,” says Owl.

The tale of the outlaw cannabis movement is one of the greatest stories never told. Full of twists and turns, ironic in the extreme, featuring a dramatic arc of rise and fall and rise and fall again, it chronicles one of the major cultural changes of our lifetime. Using the Emerald Triangle – Humboldt, Mendocino and Trinity counties in northern California – as a microcosm in which to reveal the larger picture, the film is part defining history and part critical exploration of the current crisis of the small farmer and collapse of the cannabis economy.

Co-Director/Producer: Mark Kitchell
Co-Director: Utah Blue
Producer/Writer: Jody Weiner

Producer/Director Mark Kitchell makes social histories of social change movements. He’s best known for Berkeley in the Sixties, which was nominated for an Academy Award and has become a well-loved classic, one of the defining films about the protest movements that shook America during the 1960s.

A Fierce Green Fire is a big-picture exploration of the environmental movement, grassroots and global activism from conservation to climate change -- narrated by Robert Redford, Ashley Judd, Van Jones, Isabel Allende and Meryl Streep. Evolution of Organic tells the story of organic agriculture in California; narrated by Frances McDormand, it’s a heartfelt journey from a small band of rebels to a transformation in the way we grow and eat food. Now for the cannabis movement.

Co-Director Utah Blue has produced, directed, written and /or acted in four narrative film. He developed a documentary film on the same subject, Cannabis Country. Now he is co-directing The Emerald Triangle, bringing it inside the community. It’s the story that Utah Blue was put on earth to tell. He’s a second-generation weed grower, born the year pot became valuable, whose life follows the fifty-year arc of underground cannabis. He brings the inside dope.

The Emerald Triangle is now in production. Principal photography was in the summer of 2023, a dozen new interviews and extensive B-roll, to join ten prior interviews and other resources gathered over years. Archival research continues. Scripting and editing a rough-cut is expected by the end of the year.

To cut costs, we shot the film ourselves. Now, we will script and edit the film, unpaid.
But there are bare bones costs -- $20-30,000 – we need to raise to keep going.
Our ask is lower, in keeping with our low-budget approach:

$50 to $250

Please help us keep going through this critical creative time.
Donations of $250 or more will receive a thank you credit at the end of the film.
If you are interested in investing in a partnership, please contact Mark Kitchell directly.

Here’s more to see & read about the project:

Presentation Deck:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OlvZhWtxwQC2S6-IF7n2ART5jn5t355Q/view?usp=share_link

Website:
http://emeraldtriangledoc.com/

About the Film, a writeup of the story and characters: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ACmbKIkuoXo18csyK1ywnX13Mae8PA9k/view?usp=share_link

Contact us to see more videos including a sample scene.

Something good is coming, not just a story of outlaw weed, but the tale of a unique community, the counterculture and its second generation, their arc across fifty years.

Mark Kitchell / The Emerald Triangle
(415) 515-0785
markakitchell@gmail.com