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Adrienne Leslie's documentary Eat Drink Talk Think sent shock waves through the Boston College campus on its way from Baldwin Awards nominee to Best Picture winner. The film chronicles a series of interviews with Dining Services employees who work the Late Night shift. Leslie, A&S '08, worked at Late Night herself and went through many of the trials and tribulations the film's subjects describe, thereby giving her the desire to "give a voice to the voiceless," as she says.
As workers were asked about their jobs and the treatment they received from the BC population, viewers of the film may have been surprised to hear about the rude actions of their fellow classmates. Leslie specifically described a situation one of her friends had been in. "She had to clean everything herself, and she asked this one group of kids, 'Hey when you're done if you could please put them in the trash that would be so helpful.' Those people laughed at her and took their trash and threw it on the tables that she had just cleaned," Leslie says.
But it was not just Leslie's dining hall experiences that led her to make this film. In her Studio Television Production class last year, Leslie decided to form a panel discussion of Late Night workers for her final project TV show. When her friends and colleagues entered the room to participate, her classmates started laughing and making fun of them. "They felt that they were better. They felt like they were entitled too," she recalls. This negative experience was the catalyst for Eat Drink Talk Think.
After the premiere of her documentary, Leslie has been receiving nothing but positive feedback from everyone in the community. "So many people have come up and said they really like the movie. You can tell that they feel it because it's so close to home. These are their friends in the movie. Other people have said that they're glad that finally somebody else has said it. I'm really happy to have done something like this," she says.
And to think, the film was almost never made. Leslie recounts the difficulties she faced during the filming process. She says that while Dining Services was surprisingly receptive to her request to shoot her documentary, the rest of the process provided a few more problems, like dealing with a faulty computer, editing until the sun came up, and barely getting to Video Services before the doors closed. "It was a long process. I prayed so much for this. I prayed to even get nominated. I just wanted it to be on the Internet so that year after year people could watch it and change. So to have this happen, it was amazing," she says.
When asked to share some parting words, Leslie had this to say: "Do what's right, no matter how ridiculous it might seem. When I was filming, people looked at me like I was crazy, saying, 'Why are you filming this boring story?' Do what you need to do. Have integrity."
In other words, follow in the footsteps of Adrienne Leslie.
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