The Passionate Harvest, co-produced by Bruce Milletto of Bellissimo Media Productions and Kenneth Davids, independent coffee writer, was honored with a Platinum Award at World Fest-The 34th Annual Houston International Film Festival held in April. This elite award was given to 15 video/film productions out of a total 4,300 entries.

World Fest is one of the premier film festivals in the world, and offers eight major areas of competition and awards, including Documentary, Business, TV & Cable production, Experimental, Short subjects, TV Commercials, Screenplays, Feature Films and Student Films. Both film and video formats are accepted. The Passionate Harvest won in the documentary category.

Houston-Houston is unique in the festival world in its support of Independent filmmakers. No films produced by the major studios or distributors are screened at the festival. Previous winners include Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Oliver Stone, Jonathan Demme, Ridley Scott, the Coen Brothers and Ang Lee, who were novice filmmakers when they each received their first awards at World Fest.

The Passionate Harvest, a documentary chronicling coffee production from seed to cup, was shot on location in Guatemala, Brazil, Kona and Ethiopia. "This video was a three-year labor of love for both Ken and I," said director Bruce Milletto. "For it to be one of only 15 films out of 4,300 entries recognized with a Platinum Award at this prestigious film festival proves that our intimate video portrait of coffee and the people who produce it is world-class filmmaking."

Additional information about World Fest Houston and a list of other winning films can be found on the World Fest Houston web site.

This brings the 2001 The Passionate Harvest award count to six. Earlier this year the film was honored with Telly, Summit, and Communicator Awards in addition to Best New Product Awards at Coffee Fest Las Vegas and the Specialty Coffee Association of America Conference and Exhibition in Miami.