‘People’s Choice’ open for audience vote
The Real Food Media Contest is pleased to announce the remarkable finalists in its second short films competition featuring stories about food, farming, and sustainability. From a backyard bread baker to farmworker organizers to an entrepreneurial snail farmer, the ten finalist films cover a huge range of topics and underreported issues in today’s growing good food movement. Films were selected from over 175 submissions. A panel of judges, including Padma Lakshmi, Alice Waters, Michael Pollan, and chef Tom Colicchio, will select the Grand Prize winner, first runner up, and special awards. Online voting, starting today, will determine the “People’s Choice Award” at www.realfoodmedia.org.
The 2015 Contest invited a crop of digital submissions from 30-seconds to four minutes that tell unique food stories, with original voices and creative cinematography. Diverse formats include documentary to advocacy to spoken word, and, new this year, animated submissions in honor of the 10th anniversary of The Meatrix, a digital short on factory farms watched more than 20 million times.
“We were blown away by the powerful stories and the creativity in the films we received this year,” said Anna Lappé, Real Food Media Contest founder. “It thrills us to get these stories to audiences around the world.”
A panel of food and film luminaries will select the prizewinners from the top ten finalists, to be announced in early March 2015. Prizes include a $5,000 Grand Prize as well as awards for best student film, best cinematography, and more. All winning films have distribution opportunities with Contest media partners, including the Food and Farm Film Festival, Disposable Film Festival, SXSW Eco, and the Food Book Fair.
Contest judges include:
- Thelma Adams, Yahoo! Movies contributing editor
- Johanna Blakely, Norman Lear Center, University of Southern California
- Tom Colicchio, chef and owner of Craft Restaurants and executive producer of A Place at the Table
- Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs, co-founders, Food52
- Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post chief film critic
- Byron Hurt, director and producer, Soul Food Junkies
- Padma Lakshmi, cookbook author, actress, model, and television host
- Michel Nischan, President and CEO, Wholesome Wave
- Jamie Oliver Food Foundation USA
- Michael Pollan, journalist and author, Omnivore’s Dilemma
- Maria Rodale, Chairman and CEO, Rodale, Inc.
- Aarón Sanchez, award-winning chef, cookbook author, and judge on Food Network’s “Chopped”
- Eric Schlosser, journalist and author, Fast Food Nation
- Susan Ungaro, President, James Beard Foundation
- Alice Waters, owner, Chez Panisse, founder, The Edible Schoolyard Project
- Emily Zweber, organic farmer, first AgChat Foundation executive director
Entries from the 2015 Contest will join the Real Food Media Project film library, the largest repository of short films about food, farming, and sustainability in the country, produced by award-winning author Anna Lappé. The Project’s film library showcases last year’s Contest winners and 30 more carefully curated films, all under four minutes, organized by categories that include innovative food business, youth and urban agriculture and more.
ABOUT THE REAL FOOD MEDIA CONTEST
The Contest’s mission is to spark conversation about food, farming, and sustainability around the world through short films and engaging public events. The Contest is an initiative of the Real Food Media Project, a coalition of leading food and farm organizations in the United States working together to spread the story of our food with this online film Contest, grassroots events, creative movies, and a web-based action center. Visit www.realfoodmedia.org to explore the new film library, to learn more about the Contest, and to enter the competition. Follow us on Twitter, @realfoodfilms, and like us on Facebook, at Real Food Media Project.
