Hasta La Ideas

Celebrating the classic combination of dinner and a movie, the third annual NYC Food Film Festival unites various foods and films that portray them.

The chosen films vary in length, the longest at 73 minutes is Ron Mann’s “Know Your Mushrooms.” It follows fungi experts Larry Evans and Gary Lincoff on a mushroom trip through the woods, set to a score by the Flaming Lips.

For this exclusive screening at Astor Center, chef Brad Farmerie of NYC’s Double Crown and Public restaurants will prepare a tasting menu of mushrooms while chef Harry Hawk, winner of the Burger Battle of the Boroughs, will serve up his aged rib-eye mushroom cheesesteaks.

The remaining 25 films included in the festival will mostly be shown at Water Taxi Beach locations, with free entrance.

Be sure to catch “24 Hours, 24 Million Meals: Feeding New York City” at South Street Seaport, a documentary about what it takes to keep the Big Apple and its eight million inhabitants fully fed. For chef Daniel Boloud, it means first dibs on the world’s finest truffles in an exchange that is amusingly similar to a drug deal.

The NYC Food Film Festival runs from 13-19 June 2009, but have a look at the festival’s website for a full list of the films and the food accompanying them, as well as their their screening times and locations.