Popcorn is So Mainstream — New York City Food Film Festival Arrives

The five-day event, which Motz is proud to deem “a perfect marriage of his two favorite talents,” is unlike any other festival in the world, attracting a niche audience of food-film enthusiasts to gather and feed their bellies with art, film, knowledge and delicious fare. Each date hosts a separate day and evening event, and each event is themed based on the collection of short and feature films, all food based, that are strung together to create what Motz describes as a “three-course meal in your seat.” The first few films are considered the appetizer portion since the content of the films and the food each guest is served falls under the hors d’oeuvres umbrella, same goes for the following dinner course and dessert to finish. All the while, spirits can be enjoyed at the in-theater bar.

Motz, an Emmy Award–winning director of photography and Long Island native, has taken on the role of “hamburger expert” after his film Hamburger America had an 18-month run on the Sundance Channel in 2005. The film, nominated for a James Beard Award in 2006, catapulted Motz into the food world. He has since written a book of the same title, taught a course on hamburgers at NYU and currently hosts Burger Land on the Travel Channel. His creation of the NYCFFF is a clear demonstration of his blended passions and has had a very successful run since its inception in 2007.

In 2009 Motz and his crew brought the Food Film Festival to Chicago, where it has run four consecutive years, and each November brings together the food and film community of the Windy City to celebrate two of America’s most favorite cultures. This past May, Charleston, South Carolina, hosted its first Food Film Festival, which was a delicious success, and now Motz can proudly say, “We’ve really started to figure it out. Each event takes on a new family, with roughly 75 to 150 people orchestrating its success, and each city we’ve visited has a food and film culture worth celebrating. We knew we were a cultural success when we saw that tickets to our events were being scalped on Craigslist.”

“You really can’t find a more food-focused crowd than our guests, and the films are so great and so greatly appreciated by 100 percent of the audience members; we’re all there to be entertained, and we’re each given a multisensory experience that begins the moment we arrive,” Motz explains. “It’s been such a rewarding and incredible experience to be able to create and maintain a bond between people consuming food and the people that create the food being consumed.”

This year’s NYCFFF will be held October 23 to 27. For more information about the festival, the filmmakers, the food and the tickets please visit their website. A version of this story originally appeared on Edible Long Island.