Thessaloniki doc festival adds new section on food

From molecular gastronomy to food for soup kitchens, and from the cooking reality shows that have flooded the small screen to the horrendous conditions under which people work so that we can enjoy a bar of chocolate, food and the importance it holds in society, the global economy and everyday life is the subject of a new section titled “Food vs Food” at the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, running March 3-12.

“Documentaries on food are a particularly popular sub-category of the general genre. Seeing the success of this category of films in Berlin, I thought that it was ridiculous we didn’t have something similar in Thessaloniki, especially given the city’s huge tradition in food,” says the artistic director of the parent event, the Thessaloniki International Film Festival, Orestis Andreadakis.

Culinary cinema has been on the menu both at the Berlinale and the film festival at San Sebastian – the Spanish city famed for its vibrant gastro scene – for several years.

The “Food vs Food” section in Thessaloniki comprises nine documentaries that reveal both the bright and less savory sides of food. It includes, for example, a documentary titled “Ants on a Shrimp” that focuses on the soaring career of triple-Michelin-starred chef Rene Redzepi of Copenhagen’s Noma, which will be serving its last meal this month, as well as “The Chocolate Case” on the exploitation of children at African cocoa plantations.

In a similar vein, “Bitter Grapes – Slavery in the Vineyards” exposes the working conditions in the South African wine industry, while “Priorat” relates the success story of a group of idealists who transformed one of the poorest parts of Catalonia, Spain, into an global wine destination. The new trend of entomophagy – eating bugs – is also on the program, which further includes threee Greek entries.