It's a film fest for all five senses.
At the second annual Sacramento Food Film Festival, running Friday and Saturday at the Guild Theater, people can see movies, hear talks by filmmakers and experts, and smell, touch and taste food.
"We are doing participatory events this year," said Catherine Enfield, a food blogger (www.munchiemusings.net), food truck advocate and founder of the food film festival. "We thought people would get bored just seeing film after film, and we thought we would have a discussion tied to each film."
Two documentaries will screen Friday night. The critically lauded 2011 film "Jiro Dreams of Sushi" follows octogenarian and Tokyo sushi master Jiro Ono's quest to make the perfect piece of raw fish and rice. Before the 8:30 p.m. screening, two local chefs with fine reputations of their own – Mikuni's Taro Arai and Kru's Billy Ngo – will discuss seafood sustainability and sushi-making.
Mikuni and Kru also will provide sushi platters for the 7 p.m. pre-screening event. Cost for Friday's programs, discussions and tastings is $40, and tickets are available only until midnight tonight at www. sacfoodfoodfilmfest.com.
Friday's program starts at 5:30 p.m. with "Quest for Local Honey," a documentary featuring Nevada County directors Karin Meadows and Rhi Winders interviewing Northern California beekeepers. A discussion with Meadows and Winders and a honey tasting will follow.
News of colony collapse disorder partly inspired Winders and Meadows to make "Quest." Colony collapse disorder describes a population decline among honeybees that has been linked to mites, pesticides and migratory beekeeping, among other possible factors.
"We focus on the positive things people were doing to help bees," Meadows said of the film. "Quest" covers boutique honey-making, bee-friendly farming and education efforts aimed at bee health.
Buying local honey helps decrease one's carbon footprint and, as Meadows points out, generates income for beekeepers who then might not need to rely on migratory beekeeping or the renting out of their bees to pollinate faraway farm fields where bees might be more exposed to diseases.
Saturday's program runs all day and culminates in the 6:30 p.m. screening of the documentary "Symphony of the Soil." Director Deborah Koons Garcia (widow of Grateful Dead singer Jerry Garcia) will speak after the film.
"It is filmed throughout the world, and explains all the different sorts of soil," Enfield said, "and how we are depleting and destroying the growing properties of our soil … and how we can replenish soil."
Proceeds from the festival will benefit Slow Food Sacramento and the California Food Literacy Center.
SACRAMENTO FOOD FILM FESTIVAL
When: Friday and Saturday
Where: Guild Theater, 2828 35th St., Sacramento
Cost: $40 tickets for Friday – including two films and sushi and honey tastings – and $55 tickets covering Friday and Saturday are available until midnight tonight at www.sacfoodfilmfest.com. Saturday pass: $25. Individual films: $7 at the door.
Information: www.sacfoodfilmfest.com, sacpchef@gmail.com
Call The Bee's Carla Meyer, (916) 321-1118. Follow her on Twitter @carlameyersb.
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