Slow food? Supposedly an ‘eco-gastronomic movement that champions the protection of food diversity by encouraging regional production, taste education and pleasure’. Naturally Melbourne has a festival for Slow Foodies, complete with film festival @ ACMI from Feb 25th – Mar 5th.
We Feed The World
Erwin Wagenhofer, 96 mins, Austria, 2005
Wed 5 Mar 2008, 9.30pm
Why doesn’t a tomato taste like a tomato? How does one explain that 200 million people in India, supplier of 80% of Switzerland’s wheat, suffer from malnutrition? These questions and more are investigated as filmmaker Erwin Wagenhofer charts a contentious course through the processes of production of our food from Austria to Brazil, France to Africa. This is a film about scarcity amidst plenty, answering the question of what world hunger has to do with us.
((Saw this at Melbourne International film festival a few years ago – very provocative. Found myself really bewildered while watching it in the middle of a city of 3million people, thinking if all of Melbourne wanted say an egg on toast and a glass of fresh orange juice for breakfast tomorrow, what a crazy amount of food that is to try and provide.. Film’s worth it for the United Nations talker (Jean Ziegler ) in the middle somewhere, who nails a very lucid perspective on the politics of farming subsidies and people starving. ))
The Future of Food
Deborah Koons Garcia, 88 mins, USA, 2004
Mon 25 Feb 2008, 6.30pm
Shot in the US, Canada and Mexico, this film examines the complex web of market and political forces that are changing what we eat and presents a disturbing investigation into the genetically engineered foods that have surreptitiously filled our supermarket shelves. The screening will be introduced by Percy Schmeiser, a Canadian farmer who became an international spokesperson for farmers’ rights during his protracted legal battle with agrichemical giant Monsanto.
One Man, One Cow, One Planet
Thomas and Barbara Burstyn, 56 mins, New Zealand, 2006
Mon 25 Feb 2008, 9pm, Screening introduced by the filmmakers, Tom and Barbara Burstyn.
Peter Proctor is a 78-year-old with a glass eye and partial deafness. He is also widely known as the father of modern biodynamic farming, an arcane form of agriculture. This film follows Proctor’s journey to India where he works with marginal farmers to revive this traditional agricultural method to save their poisoned lands. It exposes globalisation’s mantra of infinite growth for the environmental and human disaster it really is.
Slow Food Revolution
Carlo Buralli, 52 mins, Australia, 2003
Tue 26 Feb 2008, 6.30pm, Screening introduced by Kelly Donati, Director, Slow Food Victoria.
Slow Food Revolution records the growing phenomenon of Slow Food in Italy, Mexico and Australia.. celebrating our natural bounty and a seriously sensual journey from earth to table.
Double feature: Tue 26 Feb 2008, 8.30pm
These compelling stories from Israel and Australia use food to examine the impact of war and conflict on communities.
Liam Ward’s Refugee: a recipe (24 mins, 2005, Australia) is part animation, part cooking show and an exploration of the impact of mandatory detention and temporary visas. ((+ Looks like I’ll be teaching with Liam @ RMIT this semester.. ))
Ayelet Heller’s Strawberry Fields (60 mins, 2006, Israel) tells of the daily struggles of strawberry farmers in the north of the Gaza Strip, whose crop has to be exported to the rest of the world via Israeli-controlled checkpoints. When problems arise, the strawberry fields become battlefields.
food and community – two shorts
Tue 4 Mar 2008, 6.30pm
Faith Morgan’s The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil (53 mins, USA, 2006) tells the fascinating story of how Cuba turned to organic farming and urban agriculture after a collapse* in its supply of cheap oil from the Soviet Union. (( *Hello 21st century ))
Daniele Atzeni’s The Legend of the Holy Fisherman (18 mins, Italy, 2005) spotlights San Pietro Island where tuna fishing has been practiced for hundreds of years according to an ancient ritual.
Black Gold
Wed 5 Mar 2008, 6.30pm
Marc and Nick Francis’ Black Gold (78 mins, UK, 2006) is an eye-opening exposé of the multi-billion dollar coffee industry that traces one man’s fight for a fair price. As westerners revel in designer lattes and cappuccinos, impoverished Ethiopian coffee growers suffer the bitter taste of injustice. Screening with ‘Squeezed: The Cost of Free Trade in the Asia-Pacific‘ (40 mins, Australia, 2007). Travelling from the lush rice paddies of Thailand to squatter settlements in a Manila rubbish dump, Michael Cebon and Dominic Allen’s film creates an emotional document of how globalisation affects farmers in the Asia-Pacific.
Also of note – short film festival competition with two categories: best overall film and Soft Boiled Egg, a three-minute film category. Also playing at the festival – artists who look equally at home on a menu, as on a party poster : ‘Melbourne trip hop masters Miso as well as DJs Wasabi and Duck Roast’ – Feb 22, Edge, Fed square.