For many Americans, the Memorial Day weekend kicks off the first picnics of the season: picnics that include fresh produce turned into comfort foods like potato and macaroni salads, corn on the cob, and watermelon slices. People fill their carts at grocery stores or stuff bags at the Public Market and don't give a thought as to how the stuff got there. And many certainly don't consider how the food relates to immigration issues.

Filmmaker Angelo Mancuso never gave it a thought, either. A native Rochesterian, he was deep in production on another project when he was approached by a friend wanting to invest in a movie about agriculture and illegal immigration. For Mancuso, a second-generation Italian-American, the immigration angle hit home. And as he began to research the film that would become "American Harvest," the issue became more and more important to him.

Although advocates on both sides of the immigration issue have valid points of view, he says, both often omit what doesn't reflect their position. So he set out to make a film that would give viewers a bigger picture.

The 100-minute feature documentary was shot along the East Coast from New York to Florida and along the Mexican border. Mancuso interviewed legal and illegal migrant workers, farmers, produce brokers, suppliers, wholesalers, and consumers. (None of the politicians he approached agreed to grant interviews, Mancuso says, nor did representatives of US Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Homeland Security.)

Estimates of the number of undocumented workers in the US range as high as 12 to 14 million, and many of them work in agriculture. That makes the debate more than an immigration issue, Mancuso says. Mancuso cites the plight of one farmer he spoke to who oversees 5000 acres. The farmer needs approximately 700 workers to harvest his crop, and only 15 to 20 American citizens apply. Without hiring migrant workers, there would be no harvest.

"We are no longer connected to our food source," Mancuso says, and he asks viewers to imagine being completely dependent upon other countries to supply their food.

"American Harvest" makes its Rochester premiere Monday, June 4, at Little Theater 1, 240 East Avenue, at 6:45 p.m. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased at the box office. A discussion led by Democrat and Chronicle film critic Jack Garner and director Mancuso follows. More information is available on the film's website.