Food as access. Language as a key. A doc-series that closes the distance between people, one shared meal at a time.
Off The Table is a cinematic travel doc-series created by hyper-polyglot filmmaker Ricky Seaman and director Mark Dearborn. Using shared meals and common language, Ricky enters spaces most travellers never reach, then unpacks each journey in conversation back in New York. Season one begins in El Salvador.
We live in a moment where outrage travels faster than understanding. Whole countries and communities get reduced to headlines while algorithms reward the extremes. Off The Table exists because proximity changes everything. Misunderstanding thrives at a distance. The antidote is simple. Sit down, share a meal, and talk.
On the road
Between takes
Getting there
Far from the headlinesRicky has been moving since he was twelve. A documentary-film degree, a Master's in international affairs, and then the decision that set everything else in motion: he walked away from a comfortable career to live out of a rucksack for years, off the edges of the map, one country and one language at a time.
He does not parachute in for a piece to camera. He learns the words before he lands, sits at the table, eats what is served, and listens. Nine languages, more than a hundred countries, and the same instinct every time. Get close, stay curious, and let people tell it themselves.
That is the whole show. Not a host performing a place, but a man genuinely welcome in it, turning strangers into a conversation and a shared meal into understanding.
"Sit down, share a meal, and the distance starts to disappear."
Every episode is built from two complementary experiences, the journey and the conversation.
Ricky uses food as access. Speaking the language and understanding the context, he enters kitchens, street stalls and family tables, where conversation moves quickly past pleasantries into lived reality. These are not curated experiences. The camera does not observe from a distance. It sits at the table.
Back in New York, Ricky and director Mark Dearborn unpack the journey the way they always have, across a table at a neighbourhood bar, drinks in hand. What did we miss? What did we misunderstand? What assumptions did we bring with us? The meaning is tested and reshaped through the dialogue.
El Salvador has gone from one of the most dangerous countries on earth to the safest in the Western Hemisphere. Ricky sits down where the food is, with the people who lived that change, and lets the conversation carry him past the headline into the story people actually live.
A nation reinventing itself, told from the table out. Food as the way in, language as the key, and a camera close enough to hear what gets said between mouthfuls.
A feel for the first table long before the edit. Snippets from the road as the season takes shape.
The town, at dusk
The first table
Where the food isImagery is indicative while the pilot is in production.
Each episode stands alone, a single place, a single table, a single set of questions. Together they form a broader portrait of a connected world.
The pilot. A nation reinventing itself, told from the table out.
Displacement traced back to its origin, one recipe at a time.
Altitude, ritual, and the meals that hold a community together.
Hidden food systems at the edge of the world's most isolated region.
In the southern Philippines, history and resilience served at one table.
The many identities you find around a single table.
Season one destinations are indicative and subject to production and access.
A hyper-polyglot traveller, documentary filmmaker and former global affairs analyst with a Master's in International Affairs. Ricky has lived in nine countries, travelled to more than one hundred, and studied eight languages, connecting directly with communities across cultures and borders.
An award-winning producer and director known for cinematic, emotionally resonant storytelling grounded in real human experience. His documentary work spans Syrian refugee camps to grassroots foundations in Haiti, always centring dignity, nuance and lived truth.
An award-winning cinematographer rooted in documentary realism and visual experimentation. With a fearless eye for composition and an instinct for capturing truth in motion, Marco finds texture, intimacy and unexpected beauty in people and places.
You don't need a network to be part of this. Back the film, follow the road, or just come along for the ride. Every seat at the table counts.
The pilot is funded, thanks to 108 backers. You can still pull up a chair and help make what comes next.
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New dispatches, stills and stories, straight from the road.