Film / News
You’ve seen the films – now eat the cast
Bugs on Film is the Watershed’s summer family treat, running from August 1- September 7. It features week-long matinee screenings of Pixar’s early A Bug’s Life, ’80s fantasy romp Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, little-seen award winner Minuscule: Valley of the Lost Ants, Disney’s 1951 animated musical version of Alice in Wonderland, and the frantic DreamWorks flick Bee Movie. Additionally, the season incorporates a number of kids’ workshops and storytelling sessions.
Oh, and having awwed and aaahed at the anthropomorphised insecty antics on screen, you’re invited to scoff the critters. That’s right: they’re serving up breakfast in the form of a free insect tasting workshop with Fred McVittie from Cornish Edible Insects in the café/bar on Fri 11 Aug, from 10am-noon. This is most suitable for ravenous and adventurous 6-11 year-olds, though adults with a taste for crunchy termites and squishy caterpillars are also invited to join in.
Termite queen with mango, apparently. No, really, after you…
There’s a serious point to all this, as underlined by Danish filmmaker Andreas Johnsen’s documentary, Bugs, which is screened on Sat 12 & Sun 13 Aug. Nominated for Best Documentary Feature Film at Edinburgh Film Festival, this proceeds from the notion, endorsed by the UN, that the world’s population is growing so fast that it’ll soon need new sources of protein. So rather than breeding less or pursuing a plant-based diet, the suggestion is that wriggly grubs are the environmentally sustainable future of, erm, grub.
Backed by the self-styled “greatest restaurant in the world” – that’s Noma in Copenhagen – the Nordic Food Lab dispatches a pair of iron-stomached pioneers on a global search for insect “deliciousness”. Johnsen’s cameras follow chef Ben Reade and food science researcher Josh Evans as they trot around the world eating everything that creeps and crawls. Fortunately, this isn’t just food porn for jaded palates, as Reade in particular is concerned about the ethics of ‘entrepreneurs’ who see big money to be made from exploiting Third World bug farmers.
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