Their Stories

Deborah Koons Garcia

It's about humans having a say in what goes in our food…

I learned about 56-year-old Deborah Koons Garcia from a short article in Breathe Magazine. She is the widow of Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead and writer and director of The Future of Food, a film about the impact of genetically engineered foods. I was interested in the film and very interested in her story. Here was a woman who could have relaxed and lived the good life. Instead, she was taking on multinational corporations and trying to create social change.

On December 27, 2005, Deborah invited me into the home that she and Jerry had shared in Marin County, California to talk about her transformation from Garcia's widow to filmmaker in her own right.

The Future of Food is about humans having a say in what goes in our food and what's in our fields. This film has been very much a transformation for me because it has allowed me to give people information so they can change things. It's been really well received—played in 35 theaters across the country, received great reviews, been in really great festivals and won awards. The Academy is screening it in Los Angeles as one of the best documentaries of 2005.

If I weren't the widow of Jerry Garcia, I might not have been able to make this film. Jerry died suddenly from a heart attack in 1995. He was 53. Besides being his widow, I became co-executor of his estate and that was a lot of . . . emotionally it's just horrible. It is for anyone who has someone close to them die, but especially when it's your partner. You just want to share everything with them. There's just this big gaping hole. His estate was worth $5 million and the lawsuits against the estate were for $50 million. So I worked hard for seven years to protect his estate and legacy and to secure an income for myself. It's much smaller than people think. I put it into this film about the food system, which took me three years to make.

Prior to marrying Jerry, I had made lots of films—features, documentaries, educational and art films. After Jerry died, I wanted to establish myself as my own person in the world. A lot of people pay attention to what I do because I'm Jerry's widow, and that's natural. When people see the film, my relationship with Jerry becomes a total backburner issue. They totally want to know about what's going on with their food. I've never been questioned about Jerry at any of the screenings of The Future of Food. That's been a good transition for me because you don't want to live in a shadow of someone who is not even here. I feel like Jerry is still enhancing my life, but his legacy is not controlling it.

You'll soon be able to read the details of Deborah's transformation in Journeys: 50,000 Miles of Wise Women. Learn more about The Future of Food at www.lilyfilms.com.