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Cook Up Your Own Food Film Festival
Have you got a hankering to cook up a food and film festival close to home? Here’s some handy information about the dollars and cents you’ll need to make it all happen.
Bryan Pu-Folkes of the 7 International Arts Express Jackson Heights Film & Food Festival ballparked the total cost of his event at $60,000-$80,000. He says a substantial chunk of this amount includes the sweat equity of volunteers as well as in-kind donations from the likes of caterers, trademark lawyers and live A/V and tech support staffers. “We did it on a nickel,” says Pu-Folkes. To raise hard cash, Pu-Folkes secured small grants and held community fundraisers to cover screening fees and equipment rentals. All of the food served was donated by local restaurants.
Over in Tucson, the Slow Food & Film Festival generated $10,000 in net profits during its first year. It helped that festival founder Bob Berzok (who is retired), his wife and their Slow Food cohorts organized the entire festival as volunteers, which saved them a pretty penny on labor costs. Berzok estimates paying $350 to $500 for each film screened along with venue fees of $200 to $400 per day. Slow Food Tucson covered hotel accommodations for guest speakers and moviemakers. Like other foodie film festivals, restaurants offered their goods and services free of charge.
Having restaurants on board seems key to the success of these film-foodie endeavors. James Parrish at the Richmond Moving Image Co-op says he “can’t overemphasize the importance” of his partnership with Mama ‘Zu, a popular Italian restaurant that cooks up the feast for his annual Italian Food & Film Festival. “I don’t know what it would cost if they charged us—it would be a different thing,” says Parrish.
Dorit Dyke, founder of the Raw Film Festival in Hollywood, took out a personal loan of $35,000 to cover her festival startup costs this past year. She’s now working on securing her status as a certified nonprofit organization so that she can tap into the charitable contribution market. An entrepreneur at heart, Dyke says she hopes to have other people do the heavy lifting of organizing her festival in the years to come. “I’d like to see this take off where it can live without me,” she says.
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COMMENTS | POST A COMMENT 
- Comment by Buboy Francisco on 8/04/08 at 9:38 pm
It would be practical to have business as well as you are employed or have a regular job. Try to think of it, restaurants are good sidelines to start with.
Labor Day Recipes- Comment by Video Games Rental on 8/19/08 at 7:15 am
This seems to a great idea. Lots of fun, fascination coupled with good food.!
- Comment by Home Equity Line Rate on 9/13/08 at 5:28 am
What a great idea. The closest I have come to something like this is a huge street party where every neighbor cooked their own foods. We had music and dance, but no movies. In hindsight i wonder why not.
- Comment by Financing Business on 5/29/09 at 11:37 pm
It is a great idea to synchronize between food and entertainment, especially both of them are the basic and primary needs of people. So when you are about to start a business and search funds to finance your business, restaurant and entertainment can be firstly considered.
- Comment by Carports on 6/22/09 at 1:35 pm
Very nice idea.. People would surely gonna love it.
- Comment by Famous Food Quotes on 11/19/09 at 3:11 am
Nice idea....thanks for this.
- Comment by anuj on 1/30/10 at 4:05 am
It is a great idea to synchronize between food and entertainment, especially both of them are the basic and primary needs of people
- Comment by UCVHOST on 1/30/10 at 4:06 am
this is really great stuff
- Comment by Jack Johnson on 8/02/10 at 10:23 am
All our international transaction occurs in USD & not in INR. This occurs no matter whom we trade with. For example we buy crude oil from Saudi Arabia, yet we pay them in $ & not in Rial or INR. Why should we use $ in payment, why not INR or some other country be the trading currency. This not the case with India, all over the world they do this. Other dominant currency is euro. But why should international monetory be controled by rich nations, why not it be poor nation. Why should a fate of one country be decided by other country ?
.- Comment by meeniga on 8/25/10 at 7:22 am
They’re films about cooking and eating or drinking—like Sideways, Babette’s Feast, Wedding Banquet, or Mostly Martha. They’re films with secondary themes about food—like The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover. And they’re films with famous food scenes, like the sensual feast in Tom Jones, the Katz’s Deli scene in When Harry Met Sally ‚ or the food fight in Animal House...<a href=”http://apricotfacts.com/apricots/Apricot+Kernels+and+Seeds/”>Apricot Kernels and Seeds</a>
- Comment by stock update on 10/21/10 at 2:57 pm
The loan modification process confuses most homeowners.. The majority of homeowners throughout the United States originally purchased their home through a realtor or mortgage broker who held their hand throughout the buying process and guided them.
- Comment by Carport on 1/15/11 at 12:37 am
thanks for the info.I will def come back to read more of this content at a later date.
- Comment by Jerri Aguillon on 10/30/11 at 12:55 pm
Another movie that I would gladly see again and that could be up there in the food movie category is Waitress, with Keri Russel. It’s about a waitress, duh!, and she makes a pie every time something or someone has an emotional impact on her. She even gives them funny or poetic names. All in all, I like this idea, as long as it’s about healthy food delivery and not junk food.
This story was published in the Summer 2007 MovieMaker Magazine. The headline was:
Cook Up Your Own Festival
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