Meals On Reels

Many examples exist to illustrate the close links between the cinema and food. There is nothing surprising about this relationship, which allows the world of gastronomy to be described through films, documentaries and other audiovisual means. At the prestigious Berlin Film Festival in Germany, the culinary world is the main focus of a special section (‘Eat, Drink, See Movies – Celebrating Culinary Cinema’) organized in conjunction with Slow Food International.

You can talk about food in many different ways and Slow Food recognizes the communicative power of audiovisual approaches. In collaboration with the Cineteca di Bologna and the City of Bologna, it is now organizing Slow Food on Film (May 7-11), a festival that aims to promote a new critical awareness of food culture through films, shorts, documentaries and TV series which present original perspectives on food, the problems of agriculture and food memories as a heritage to be defended.

Films have addressed these issues for some time and sometimes they clearly focus on products and producers, as was the case of two documentaries made during 2007:

– Semillas sagradas, by Andrea Mendez Brandam, Juan Nicolas Broens and Maria Teresa Morresi, is a journey through the senses and taste in the Quebrada de Humahuaca, a wide valley in northeast Argentina. The film portrays people who recognize and are recovering the most valuable thing the earth can offer: seeds, the custodians of biodiversity and future food sovereignty.

– M. Bené goes to Italy, by Manuel Lampreia Carvalho (presented at the Berlinale festival), describes the life and the experience at Terra Madre 2006 of Benedito Batista da Silva, a 60-year-old producer of manioc flour in the Amazon region.

These creations are inspired by the exemplary efforts of all those who strive constantly to ensure the survival and recognition of plants, animal species and traditional agricultural methods in the areas where they live.

For more information:

www.berlinale.de/en/das_festival/festivalprofil/berlinale_themen/Kulinarisches_Kino.html

www.slowfoodonfilm.it