A film festival focusing purely on food is to be launched at gourmet dinner event in Kingussie on 29th September 2007. The Kingussie Food on Film Festival (KFFF) which will run from 1st – 3rd February 2008 will showcase producers, chefs and all aspects of producing and eating food through documentaries, workshops, demonstrations and short
films as well as screening main feature films. One of the highlights of the Festival will be the showing of the winning entries from the film making competition which will be open to filmmakers and schools and judged by a panel of Scottish film industry experts.

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.

Commenting on the launch of the KFFF, Michelin star chef Lydie Bocquillon said: “This is a really exciting concept – food is such an interesting subject and lends itself well to the medium of film. We are on the cusp of a major cultural event in a rural area of the Scottish Highlands and are delighted that we have some influential individuals who have
given their time to take part in the Festival such as BBC News Presenter, Craig Anderson and the enthusiastic presenter, Nell Nelson of `The Woman who ate Scotland’ series. . We intend this to become an annual event. We are providing a platform for emerging Scottish filmmakers to have their work viewed in public plus an amazing opportunity for young people to experience and develop their film making skills through our film competition which is open to all High Schools in the Highlands and Cairngorm National Park.”

John Tracey added: “The KFFF will provide a great opportunity for not only our own students but those throughout the Highland region to get really involved in learning about the many aspects of food from farming to tasting and film making in a very practical and creative way providing them with good skills for the future. I hope that the local community will lend its support to this initiative by grabbing the chance to become involved with both hands.”

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 this year’s highly acclaimed and controversial new feature film uncovering the truth behind the coffee industry `Black
Gold’.