Slow Food President Carlo Petrini will visit Germany this week to present the newly released German edition of his most recent book, Terra Madre, first published in Italian in 2009 by Giunti-Slow Food Editore. Petrini will introduce his book at a literary event in Munich, the BioFach fair in Nuremberg and at the international Berlinale Film Festival in the capital city before ending the week with students at the Slow Food Campus Fulda Convivium.
Published by Hallwag Verlag under the title Terra Madre – Für ein nachhaltiges Gleichgewicht zwischen Mensch und Mutter Erde (Terra Madre – for a sustainable equilibrium between man and Mother Earth), the book follows Petrini’s Slow Food Nation: Why Our Food Should Be Good, Clean, and Fair, published in German in 2007. In Terra Madre, the Slow Food founder updates his analysis of the world food crisis and the problems of the current food system, and calls for the reconquering of food sovereignty, the promotion of sustainable production and the construction of local economic systems that respect health and ecosystems.
Petrini’s solution lies in the thousands of newly formed local alliances between food producers and consumers in the Terra Madre network, and he proposes expanding these alliances to connect regional food communities around the world to promote good, clean, and fair food.
“The Terra Madre communities have a central role in creating a constructive dialog between producers and consumers,” he writes, “a dialog that will bring a new equilibrium between people and the land, an essential prerequisite to recognizing and appreciating again the real value of our food.”
Petrini will present the book at the fifth Culinary Cinema program of the Berlinale Film Festival on February 15, where he will be joined by Festival Director Dieter Kosslick who wrote the foreward to the German edition. In his text, Kosslick comments on the shared values of the two projects: “Here at the Berlinale in February and every two years in the autumn at Terra Madre in Turin, thousands of people come together who love and foster the cultural differences of the world, and who see diversity as quality and a priceless treasure. Of course there is one big difference: food, unlike film, is crucial for life – and yet both belong together. Film, the arts and food are our culture.” Slow Food Germany is also participating in the festival, taking part in the Youth Food Cinema program of the Culinary Cinema, discussing food waste and composting with school groups, following a screening of the film Taste the Waste.
Other highlights of Petrini’s trip include a discussion moderated by Ijoma Mangold from the weekly newspaper Die Zeit in Munich, and a debate at the Fiera BioFach, the organic trade fair held in Nuremberg.
For more information (in German):
www.terramadre.org
For more information on the Culinary Cinema program: Berlinale Film Festival