The 2014 festival screened five new feature-length films and some short films. The feature-length films (documentaries and a comedy), fall into these categories:
Restaurant life
Seed banks and climate change
Urban farms and communities
Culinary opera
7:30pm Muenzinger Auditorium, CU-Boulder campus
The Art and Science of Beer (short movie),(to precede Craft)
Presented by the University of California, this film features Dr. Charles Bamforth, the head of Malting and Brewing Science at UC-Davis, explaining beer-making and how to pick the freshest pint at a pub.
Filmmaker Craig Noble chronicles the craft beer revolution at North American breweries, including Odell Brewing and Funkwerks in Ft. Collins.
Introductory speaker: Bryan Selders, head brewer of Post Brewing Company in Lafayette and formerly of Dogfish Head Brewery.
Panelists: Bryan Selders, Dan Rabin, award-winning beer and travel journalist and author of the Colorado Breweries Guidebook, Eric Wallace, co-founder of Indian Peaks Brewing Company, and Julia Herz, craft beer program director for the Brewers Association, BJCP beer judge, and certified cicerone®, who will also moderate this panel
7pm Muenzinger Auditorium, CU-Boulder campus
Lil's Meatballs (short movie) (to precede "Trattoria")
Through stop-motion animation, 90-year-old Lil tells the family recipe for meatballs while her husband Tony accompanies her on harmonica.
Trattoria,
Trattoria is a dramedy set in the San Francisco restaurant world about a workaholic chef and his estranged son who must reconnect and heal their past through cooking. The film includes interviews with real chefs from the San Francisco Bay Area.
Introductory Speaker: Dave Query, Founder of the Big Red F Restaurant Group
Meltdown (short movie), (to precede Seeds of Time)
In an epic struggle for survival, Spaghetti, Ham Sandwich, and Celery embark on a journey to the refrigerator's temperature control knob in this animated short.
Seeds of Time,
This documentary looks at the crucial role that seed banks will have to play in preventing famine due to climate change, focusing on the global travels and issues that an executive director of an international seed bank encounters.
Introductory Speaker: Gayle Volk, plant physiologist at the USDA-ARS National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation in Fort Collins, Colorado
Followed by a panel discussion
Tea for Two (short movie), (to precede Growing Cities)
A story about the love and dedication of an organic, fair trade tea farmer and his wife amongst the Sri Lankan tea fields.
Growing Cities,
Growing Cities, a documentary, examines the role of the burgeoning urban farming movement in the US, focusing on its potential to revitalize cities and improve the quality of our food.
Introductory Speaker: Coby Gould, executive director of The GrowHaus in Denver
Panelists: Coby Gould, Joseph Teipel, co-founder and director of operations at Re:Vision, Shannon Spurlock, community initiatives coordinator at Denver Urban Gardens, and Lauren Richardson, master gardener and greenhouse manager at Growing Gardens in Boulder. This panel will be moderated by Rusty Collins, director of the Colorado State University Denver Extension office
10 Things We Love About Italy (short movie), (to precede El Somni)
The Perennial Plate team travels across Italy, filming their favorite foods and how they are produced and eaten. Andiamo!
El Somni,
This documentary immerses viewers in the creation of a twelve-course multi-media culinary opera in Barcelona involving a world-renowned restaurant, musicians, poets, painters, composers, singers, and visual artists from around the world. The film also incorporates experimental film, fiction, and animation for a visual and sensual tour de force.
Remarks by: Alex Figura, Lower48 Kitchen, who worked at the featured restaurant while this documentary was being filmed
Introductory Speaker: Chef Ian Kleinman
The Flatirons Food Film Festival is part of the International Film Series (IFS) at the University of Colorado. For information on the International Film Series information: www.internationalfilmseries.com.