Kingussie Food on Film Festival
1st - 3rd February '08

The KFFF is the brainchild of Lydie Bocquillon of the town’s The Auld Alliance Gourmet Academy (AAGA) who was responsible for food design on the set of the BBC series `Monarch of the Glen’ filmed in Kingussie, Scottish filmmaker, Helen Graham who has filmed in Skye for The University of Gastronomy in Bra, Italy and Kingussie High School’s new head teacher, John Tracey.  The AAGA which has Lady Claire MacDonald as Patron, was launched last year in conjunction with Kingussie High School to provide cookery and hospitality training.  The School will play an important role in hosting Festival activities.

The Kingussie Food on Film Festival is gaining momentum with a panel of prestigious names from the world of food and Scottish film making announced for the judging of three Short Film Competitions which are open to emerging talent in film making and school pupils in the Highlands.

Nell Nelson, TV presenter of `The Woman who ate Scotland’; will host the awards ceremony and chair the judging panel as well as giving a cookery demonstration at the Food Hall on Saturday 2nd February.  She will be joined by award winning cook and food writer and AAGA Patron, Lady Claire MacDonald; TV’s Cromarty film director, Don Coutts whose BAFTA award winning `American Cousins’ film will be shown on the Friday night; film director Katrina MacPherson whose documentary `Catching the Tide’ was recently broadcast on BBC2 and film producer and director, Richard Else, one of Europe’s most experienced remote location filmmakers.

Lydie Bocquillon who runs the AAGA and is a key organiser of the Festival said “We are delighted to have attracted some of Scotland’s most prolific filmmakers and food industry names to the very first Kingussie Food and Film Festival.    We have the opportunity to really put Kingussie on the map with this ground breaking project which involves the whole community.  We already have a good number of entries for all three film competitions which is going to make the whole event very exciting and showcase some real emerging talent.”

The KFFF will kick off with a screening of Scottish films on the Friday night followed by international films on Saturday with the main feature being ‘What’s Cooking’  directed by Gurinder Chadha of `Bend it like Beckham’ fame and, on the Sunday afternoon, this year’s highly acclaimed and controversial new feature film uncovering the truth behind the coffee industry `Black Gold’.

Find out more from the KFFF website.