PHILOSOPHY

Food preparation – and above all, the pleasure of eating - has a distinct social value. Gathering around the so calledrich, healthy table is an ancient tradition and a place and time for a pleasant exchange of ideas. It has become a cultural event par excellence - one the most famous Plato’s dialogues about love bears the name „Symposium“.

Industrial food production and mass use of chemicals have a massive negative impact on the environment – and human health. This has, in recent years, contributed to the growing awareness of the importance of healthy nutrition – and is also manifested in the cinema industry. A list of recently produced documentaries and feature films that had an important role in raising public awareness contains many “hits”, such as Super Size Me, Food Inc, Sideaways, Mondovino, Fast Food Nation, and many more.

Enjoying food is closely associated with hosting friends and acquaintances in your own home, and is the most beautiful “excuse” to meet new people.

In all cultures on Earth food has a huge symbolic - and therefore artistic - significance. The world's largest chefs are considered true “artists”. They pay much of their attention to the appearance of dishes served. Their dishes and delicacies thus end up as frequent „actors“ on TV, or in films.

The Kinookus Food Film Festival takes place in Ston (Croatia) every September. Formerly the second most important town of the Republic of Ragusa, Ston is centrally located in the Dubrovnik-Neretva County and has been famous for ages for its walls, saltpans and excellent gastronomic production. The area around Ston is renowned for the cultivation of shellfish, superb wines and olive oil. By bringing the seventh art back into the open public spaces of Ston, the Kinookus organizers wish to give their support to the ongoing efforts of the local community and civic associations to revive and preserve the unique spirit of this magical place.

The Kinookus FFF has established itself as a multidisciplinary platform in which problems concerning industrial food production, new cultural and social models as well as sophisticated relations between man and his environment are being discussed.

A tale of food is a tale of cultivation, tradition, flavour, hard work, hunger, obesity, colour, diversity, soil, love… in a word, life; it is a tale of life. Consequently, Kinookus is not just a film festival. Persistently we have been seeking to establish a cultural scene by which the seventh art can reach small producers, dust off long-forgotten objects and places, encourage young people to participate and to question, and bring people back to their land and their community... The myth of perpetual ‘growth and development’, without paying any attention to the cyclic wisdom of nature, has revealed its true face: all the places that from this perspective were labelled ‘backward and underdeveloped’ are today the last oases of harmony and serenity… And Ston is one of these places.

Kinookus is an expression of a growing awareness of the necessity we face to return to a common-sensical management of natural resources, to the principles of collectiveness and humility which guided our ancestors for centuries. We gain familiarity with and reflect upon these values through talking to people who live by them, as we truly believe in the power and magic of encountering diversity. Resistance of the world view of materialism and greed blind to the fragile equilibrium of nature is possible only through the patient education of young people, showing them love and care of life in all its forms… We are responsible for the legacy we leave to them, which can be a desert, or the beautiful diversity and harmony of our planet.