Slow Food on Film

The Bra Short Movie Festival and Slow Food have decided to join forces to create the first world short movie festival devoted entirely to the love of food. The event will be held in Bra (a small town in Piedmont, Italy, home to the Slow Food international movement – whose name fits in well with the aesthetic of the short movie) as part of the fourth Bra Short Movie Festival (which also features competitions for, respectively, Italian short movie screenplays and Italian and European shorts). All the films in competition in the food section will be projected on line on the Slow Food international site.

Besides being presented with the Gold Snailaward, winners will also receive a cash prize of 10,000 euros, and their films will be promoted in all Slow Food’s major international publications and on its website. Slow Food will also promote and/or distribute the shorts on international television channels dedicated to the world of food and wine and on the sites and portals with which it collaborates.
Films in any format will be admitted. They should last no longer than 20′ and be subtitled in English (or Italian).

The films must be entered exclusively in the Festival and the Artistic Management reserves the right to shortlist the titles to be admitted to the competition.
The subject is, we repeat, the love of food. Meaning that films (not documentaries) should address the rite of food as an expression of a culture or a form of learning, of a technique or of an emblematic element of a social condition. Or a magical and/or romantic vision of existence. Or else – why not? – as a passion and/or obsession, the source of sacred or profane veneration and/or dedication.

In short, the basic idea is to raise the profile of the cultural component of food (savvy plus savor!) by racking brains as well as chomping jaws. By delighting the eyes and whetting the palate to get the old gray matter going. Eating isn’t only a matter of filling up the tank with fuel. It is – as Slow Food has always maintained – a matter of culture too. Cuisine is a complex, millenary language (which everyone can speak but which only a few can transform into art, just as poetry is the privilege of a select few cultivators of language). Like man himself, it is the product of ancient knowledge. We believe the time has come for young film makers to come to terms with food, and Slow Food on Film wants to offer them the first international opportunity to do just that.

Update!
The Festival will be held from April 18-21 2002.
Well over 40 ‘food’ films have been submitted, though the full list of entries and the definitive program have still to be finalized.
The guest president of Slow Food On Film jury will be Vincent Schiavelli, one of Hollywood’s most celebrated character actors, famous for his roles as Fredrickson in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Salieri’s valet in Amadeus, Bullet Bob in Blade Runner, the ghost of the subway in Ghost, Dr Kaufman in Tomorrow Dies, and many others still, besides being a cookery writery and enthusiast.

info: [email protected]