behind a couple of the featured documentaries.

(synth music) - [Bill] This year's Freep Film Festival almost here talking about a couple of selections, won the centerpiece of the festival for a scene in New York last November.

- It's the focus of a new documentary called "Coldwater Kitchen".

- That is perfect, man.

Thank you.

- [Bill] "Coldwater Kitchen", a Michigan story made by the Detroit Free Press that premiered at Doc NYC.

Now we can see it here in Detroit, along with several AAPI themed documentaries, part of a film series, Asian American Pacific Islander stories, including one with some history that touches all of us if we listen to the music.

- [Radio Host] He's got some history, Ben Fong-Torres.

I used to read of in "Rolling Stone".

- Ben Fong-Torres helped shape American culture period.

That was it.

- Suzanne Joe Kai, native San Franciscan, journalist and filmmaker.

The film, "Like a Rolling Stone: "The Life and Times of Ben Fong-Torres".

How did you get the idea to do this film?

- It was really an interesting casual conversation that I had with Ben and I've known him for many decades, actually.

Cuz back in the early days, when I'm like 21, 22 years old we were the first Asian American faces on television in San Francisco.

- [Bill] Asian Americans in the media, so rare back then.

- Then there's Ben.

Ben, that's interesting.

And then actually he came before us.

- [Bill] Ben Fong-Torres had a nationwide audience even beyond that.

- [Radio Host] Before the internet, before blogging, before tweeting, there was the "Rolling Stone".

There were superstars who worked there.

One of the biggest was Ben Fong-Torres.

- I just said, Ben, why isn't there a documentary about you?

And then he just said, "I don't know, "why don't you just do one?"

And that was it.

That's how it started.

So everybody knew Ben Fong-Torres.

Even though we were colleagues as working journalists, I thought this would be a nice short film and it would be exciting and rock and roll and then over and out.

- He's one of the great writers ever.

And there's some good ones, but not as good as this guy.

- Aw.

- So I figured it'd probably be a year or two.

(laughs) And it wasn't.

- [Bill] It would take more than a decade, over a hundred interviews and more to discover about Fong-Torres' family's deep connection to the Chinese American community in San Francisco.

Now part of that history there.

- [Ben] Having come from my background, helped to direct subjects and the way stories were done.

- [Stevie] It was like something that made me feel like because I was black, I could never be or I would never be.

- Ben has this amazing audio tape collections, probably 50 plus years old and I would hand carry them very carefully on the flights to get these tapes to our archive people.

And they actually would spend sometimes months just to restore the audio.

- [Bill] "Like a Rolling Stone: "The Life and Times of Ben Fong-Torres" modern popular music history intertwined with modern Asian American history.

Who knew?

If you didn't, you will when you see this.

- [Chef Hill] The hardest part is the math.

- [Inmate] Math is killing me right now.

- [Bill] Chef Hill teaches food tech at the Lakeland Correctional Facility in Coldwater Michigan.

- [Chef Hill] He said, "No, look, listen.

"If you're going to go out there and work in this industry "you need to know what you need to know."

- [Bill] Inmates prepping for a very fine dining experience but still this is prison.

The chef's knives all tied down and accounted for.

- [Brian] Only knife a lot of these guys have held has been in battle.

And then you give them one and they're like, "Well, you're giving me this?"

And don't get me wrong, it's tethered, with a lock on it but yeah, let's cut some things.

And that trust is the first little bit of trust they've had in a long time and from that trust they create.

- "Coldwater Kitchen" co-director Brian Kaufman also earned a trust of the corrections department to let the cameras inside.

How did this film come about?

- So the film came about through a letter that was sent by a guy who ended up being a character in the film, Ernest Davis.

Longtime tutor in the program and he sent a letter to Mark Kurlyandchik, who's the co-director with me who was the Free Press restaurant critic at the time.

And Ernest's letter said basically, we got this program, we're doing awesome stuff, would you come out?

Mark went in his capacity as a restaurant critic, wrote a story about it, then approached me about doing a film.

- [Dink] But the personal aspect of it is the love and care that you get from preparing food.

And then when you give it to someone to eat, what you get back from that.

It is like you sharing of yourself.

They get to taste a little bit of you.

- [Brian] When you walk out though, and you go back to the unit, guys know you're in food tech, so you become a target.

- [Bill] Food, quite the commodity in prison, a harsh reality that, but reality can also be viewed in different ways.

- Part of what we try to do as documentary filmmakers is sort of bust the stereotypes and it's very easy to go in, make a film about prison and you're seeing clanging doors and you're hearing all these sounds and it's dark and moody.

And the classroom, the guard, and the food tech had such a warm feeling to it when we went in.

It's like, let's turn our cameras on this, the humanity that exists in this place that Chef Hill created.

(tool hammering) - [Chef Hill] I hear it all the time.

"Man, you probably spend a lot of money on those guys.

"There's a lot of people out here who are struggling," and that's usually where the conversation starts to go south.

That right there, that's some good eating right there.

And I know that everybody that's there is not there for the right reasons.

I mean, I get that.

Because yeah, we do.

We eat pretty good in there, but we eat with a purpose.

- The best part of the film is showing you the reality of it.

It's a harsh reality.

- [Bill] Chef Dink, another key character in the film, now running the Green Mile Grille on Detroit's East side.

- When you get to see that side of it and you see what this program is doing and the rest of the culinary programs that's in the Michigan Department of Corrections, it's just giving you a skill that can be used forever.

You scaring me to death.

- [Chef Hill] When I first met Dink-- - Do it like this, look.

- [Chef Hill] What I remember the most is-- - Pull it out man, this come out.

Make it easy.

You work smart, not hard, bro.

Here you go.

- [Chef Hill] He had this cool daddy walk.

- What y'all got going on up in here, man?

- [Chef Hill] I thought, okay.

I'm gonna have a problem with this guy because-- - [Dink] That smell so good.

- [Chef Hill] I think he believes that he's the do all be all.

But as we traveled that journey, it came out of me.

And then he likes to be in it.

And that's the whole thing.

You have to want to be in food service, to be in food service.

You can't fake the funk.

If it's in you, it's in you.

- Chef, he don't look at your file.

He don't care what you did to get there.

If he accept you in his class, he going to make it sure that you are qualified to do something when you get out of there.

It's not about getting in, it's about getting out and not going back.

That's the thing.

That's Chef Hill thought process.

- And Chef Hill is one of those rare people who operates with such a level of humility and kindness.

The students who come through his program can't help but taking what he has to say and running with it.

- And dealing with me.

That's the hard part.

I have you to talk to.

- [Bill] Brad, another outstanding cook.

He struggles with an addiction even while incarcerated.

- And I don't know which way to go.

- There's only one way to go.

You can't give up.

Don't give up.

I've never given up.

Push.

P period.

U period.

S period.

H period.

Pray until something happens.

That's exactly what it stands for.

- "Coldwater Kitchen", a Detroit Free Press production.

How many newspapers have a documentarian on staff?

- I don't know.

I do get called in to do some daily stuff, occasionally.

I started working here in 2007.

It was always my goal and the goal of the immediate leadership in the photo department to raise our video levels every year, higher and higher to the point where we're now making films that are competing with independent documentary filmmakers and being shown at the same festivals.

And that's sort of where we've taken our craft, the Free Press.

Let's create content that's not necessarily for the Free Press website, but can we get this out into the world through streaming platforms and treat it like other documentary content.

- Good enough chef?

- A little more.

Yeah, just kind of rub with your fingers.