CONCEPT

The series follows Ricky Seaman, hyper-polyglot and international affairs expert, as he travels the world sharing meals across cultures and borders to explore how people live, what they believe, and what connects them. Each episode combines two complementary experiences:

Ricky uses food as access. Speaking the language and understanding the context, he enters spaces most travelers never reach - kitchens, street stalls, family tables - where conversations move quickly past pleasantries into lived realities. These aren’t curated experiences; they’re unscripted encounters shaped by trust, proximity, and the unpredictability of being an outsider welcomed in. The camera doesn’t observe from a distance, it sits at the table.

Back in New York City, Ricky and director Mark Dearborn unpack the journey the same way they always have: sitting across from each other at a neighborhood bar, drinks in hand, replaying the experience. It's an unfiltered, less formal interview. A conversation between friends trying to make sense of what they witnessed. What did we miss? What did we misunderstand? What assumptions did we bring with us? The journey is reexamined in real time, layering cultural, political, and personal context onto what initially felt intuitive. The meaning of the experience is tested and reshaped through the dialogue.

The result is a new form of travel storytelling: immersive, reflective, and immediate. No luxury gloss. No performative hosting. No distance between audience and experience. Just two friends trying to make sense of the world through conversation, unfolding across borders and continuing long after the journey ends, over a drink at the bar.

WHY NOW

We live in a moment where outrage travels faster than understanding. Entire countries, cultures, and communities are reduced to headlines, while algorithms reward extremes over nuance. Travel content is more visible than ever, yet too often shaped by spectacle and sensationalism rather than perspective.

Off The Table exists now because proximity changes everything. Misunderstanding thrives at a distance. The antidote is simple: sit down, share a meal and talk.

PILOT

We are seeking funding to produce our pilot episode in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest, establishing the series’ tone and creative language. This support enables independent production across crew, travel, and field logistics, as well as post-production including editing, animation, sound design, and music. A portion of the funds will also go directly toward supporting local and Indigenous communities we engage with during production, ensuring the project contributes meaningfully to the people and regions at the heart of the story. The pilot will serve as the foundation for the series and demonstrate the full scope of its storytelling approach.

The Invisible Table of the Amazon

Story

Ricky travels deep into the Brazilian Amazon, to the edge of one of the most isolated regions on Earth, searching for an answer to one of the last great human mysteries: Who are the last uncontacted peoples on Earth and what connects us across worlds that never meet?

Because contact with these protected communities is strictly forbidden, Ricky traces the hidden food systems that exist at the edges of their territories, exploring how ingredients sustain nearby communities and ripple outward into the modern world. From remote rainforest villages to the streets of São Paulo, the episode reveals how food carries culture across distance, connecting worlds that rarely meet, yet remain deeply intertwined.

Episode Overview

At the edge of the Amazon’s protected zones, Ricky begins with the people and organizations working to safeguard the territories of some of the last uncontacted peoples on Earth. Over shared meals, he explores the challenge of protecting communities that cannot be approached, and what it means to build systems rooted in absence, respect and restraint.

From there, the journey moves deeper into the Amazon, where an Indigenous group living at the edge of protected territories offers a rare window into ways of life shaped by proximity to worlds that remain intentionally untouched. Through daily rituals, regional ingredients and conversations on the ground, Ricky explores how these groups live in quiet relationship with neighboring uncontacted peoples. At the heart of this chapter is a rare shared meal with an Indigenous group whose connection to these protected regions offers a level of access and human insight almost never seen in a travel series. Together, these encounters reveal how these ecosystems sustain both people and culture at the margins of isolation.

The story then expands outward, following the movement of ingredients rooted in the ecosystems surrounding uncontacted peoples beyond the rainforest. In cities like Manaus and São Paulo, Ricky meets renowned chefs working with Amazonian ingredients, exploring how these traditions evolve in urban contexts where heritage meets reinterpretation and local identity takes on new forms.

Back in New York, Ricky and director, Mark Dearborn, reflect on the experience, unpacking questions of access, ethics, and curiosity, and confronting what it means to explore a world that cannot, and should not be fully seen.

What emerges is not just a story about food, but about connection: an invisible thread linking remote ecosystems to modern life, and the past to the present.

DISTRIBUTION AND FUTURE

Off The Table is conceived as a premium, multi-episode documentary series designed for global streaming platforms. The pilot is intended as a proof of concept to position the series for development and distribution with a streaming partner, establishing the tone, format, and narrative scope for the full season. The first season is structured as a multi-episode journey across:

The progression is intentional, creating a rhythm that shifts from dense urban centers to remote landscapes, from open exchange to restricted worlds, each episode exploring a distinct cultural and geopolitical landscape through the lens of food, language, and human connection.

Off The Table is built as a global, scalable series. Each episode stands alone as an immersive story, while collectively forming a broader portrait of a connected world. The format allows the series to move fluidly across geographies and themes, expanding into new regions and cultural contexts over time without losing its distinct voice.

If the campaign surpasses its initial funding goal, all additional support will go directly toward the development and production of future episodes, helping expand the series into new regions, stories, and cultural conversations.

At its core, the series combines cinematic fieldwork with reflective conversation, creating a structure that can evolve across seasons while deepening its perspective with each journey.

THANK YOU

We appreciate your support for backing this project and helping bring Off The Table to life. Your contribution allows us to tell stories that go beyond the surface, to explore the world with curiosity and care, and to create something that connects people across distance.