New Films & New Crops in July
The 2025 Ceres season begins to take shape
Dear Friends,
We're nearing the end of July, having just closed submissions for Ceres' 9th edition this fall. Now comes one of my favorite parts: diving into the submissions to discover what will define our 2025 festival 🍿.
This year brought dozens of submissions (a welcome increase from last year) and our team of thoughtful volunteers has been busy reviewing every entry. Each film is watched and annotated by at least two people. Sarah Rice, our lead programmer and producer, brings invaluable expertise here. With deep film background and archival research skills, she approaches each submission with the kind of scholarly, patient attention that truly elevates our selection process.
From there, the rest of the team brainstorms on Q&As, panel pairings, and venue matches. It’s an energizing moment that fuels our fall lineup and excites us about what we’ll be presenting.
And then there's the delicious part of getting to know our filmmakers and building the Ceres community. The thrill! ✨
A taste of what we'll be diving into: films like Grandma’s Food, dir. Luisa Macedo (Brazil), from the Ceres 2024 collection.
On another note, last week we visited Row 7's pop-up at Librae Bakery to try Sweet Garleek. Row7 is a seed company working with farmers and chefs to create new vegetable varieties that are both flavorful and resilient. (Yes, new vegetables are a thing. More on that below!) We couldn't resist exploring this reimagined vegetable world…
It was the perfect New York summer outing and it totally delivered: weekday, mid-morning, close to Union Square's Farmer's Market. That lightness of summer in the city, when time bends a little and you find yourself doing things out of the ordinary, discovering wild new things in one of the best cities in the world, reminding us why we're here. Plus that garleek! So aromatic…
🌱 Curious how new vegetables are born?
One fascinating innovation is CRISPR: a tool that lets scientists edit a plant’s existing genes to amplify taste, nutrition, or resilience. It’s already on the market: in Japan, a CRISPR-edited tomato called Sicilian Rouge High GABA contains 4–5× the calming amino acid GABA.
These technologies can reshape how we think about flavor, health, and the future of food.
Would you eat a gene-edited tomato that helps you sleep? Or one that just tastes sweeter?
We’d love to know.
More soon with updates about this fall’s festival lineup. Thanks for being part of this with us.
Warmest,
Maayan
Festival Director, Ceres Food Film Festival