Yesterday at the Department of Communication at the University of Bologna, visitors to Slow Food on Film attended the International Convention on the subject of ‘Food in TV’. It proved to be a stimulating and insightful presentation into the portrayal of food through the visual media worldwide, with opinions from an international panel of speakers.
These included Carlo Petrini, president of Slow Food International; Carlo Freddero, president of RaiSat; Vicenzo Tassinari, president of COOP Italy; Fabrizio Binacchi, journalist and director of RAI Emilia-Romagna; and several distnguished profressors from the University of Bologna.
They discussed changing patterns in food advertising and television space dedicated to farmers, agriculture and food over recent years; the birth of Italian television; how food is used as an educational tool; food’s role as television entertainment; and the links between food, lifestyle and reality TV.
In the afternoon, Geoffrey Drummond, and American director and independent producer, Irene Wong of IW Productions, and American independent executive producer and director, Stefan Gates, British food writer and TV presenter (Cooking in the Danger Zone), Stefania Barzini, an Italian writer and journalist, Marco Bolasco, an Italian TV presenter and writer for Gambero Rosso Channel (Italy) and the Swiss journalist and film-maker Annette Frei Berthoud spoke of the various forms of language adopted in TV food programs and how food itself is an instrument of communication and language. They also discussed the issues encountered working within the food television industry.
Today, the Slow Food on Film Docs Competition will continue with a full program at Scala Scorsese of the Cinema Lumière with screenings of: Kor Är Fina, by Stefan Jarl (Sweden 2007), How to Save a Fish from Drowning by Kelly Neal (UK/Scotland, 2007), The Sacred Food by Jack Pettibone Riccobono (USA, 2007), Quit India by Alice Concari (Italy/India, 2006), What a Freegan Waste by Craig Rook (UK/US 2006) and Mr Bené Goes to Italy by Manuel Carvalho (Brazil, 2006).
At 3pm and 6.15pm in Sala Officinema/Mastrianni, festival goers will have a second opportunity to see The Lost World, programs 4 and 5 from a fascinating sequence of films, found in the archives at the Cineteca di Bologna and resored in collaboration with Cineteca Sarda and the Milan Polytechnic, look back at a way of living defined by nature in Italy in the 1970s.
At the end of the day, 6.30pm at MAMbo, the Modern Art Museum of Bologna, cellist Charles Curtis will perform a recital of music byLa Monte Young. With the patronage of the Granarolo dairy, the museum will then lay on a dinner of spaghetti bolognese and zuppa inglese, prepared by pastry chef Gino Fabbri.
For more information,
www.slowfoodonfilm.com
Victoria Blackshaw
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