Portland, OR, United States, 06/04/2008 - Bellissimo Media Productions Wins Bronze Award at the 2008 WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival for The World Barista Championship 2007: Tokyo.

“The World Barista Championship 2007: Tokyo,” co-produced by Bellissimo Media Productions and the World Barista Championship (WBC), was honored with a Bronze Remi Award at the 41st Annual WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival held April 11-20, 2008 in Houston. This elite award was given to only 158 video/film productions out of a total 4,500 category entries from 37 countries.

WorldFest-Houston is the 3rd longest-running International film festival in North America and one of the premier film festivals in the world. Previous WorldFest-Houston 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 WorldFest.

WorldFest-Houston offers 12 major areas of competition and awards. “The World Barista Championship 2007: Tokyo” won its award in the Film and Video Production Category in the training sub-category.

“It’s a great honor to win this award,” said Bruce Milletto, Bellissimo president and the DVD’s director. “Knowing the criteria and how difficult it is to win an award at WorldFest makes this particular honor very sweet.”

“The World Barista Championship 2007: Tokyo,” documents the 8th Annual World Barista Championship (WBC) held in Tokyo, Japan July 31 to August 2, 2007. The DVD is the first of its kind produced in the eight-year history of the WBC, and uniquely captures both the heart and mind of the exciting 2007 championship event. This documentary-style DVD includes interviews, local color shots and footage of many of the competitors in action. The film was shot and edited by Dana Vion of Sky’s the Limit Productions based in Springfield, Oregon.

“The DVD documents the full WBC experience, and allows viewers to see and feel the excitement generated by this competition as well as to hear from the participants, attendees and coffee professionals from all over the world,” said Milletto.

This is the third time Bellissimo Media Productions has been honored by WorldFest-Houston. In 2001, the Bellissimo/Kenneth Davids production, “The Passionate Harvest,” was one of only 15 festival entries to win a Platinum Award, and in 2005, “Advanced Barista Training: Extreme Pours,” won a second place Gold Award in the training category.

“The World Barista Championship 2007: Tokyo,” retails for $69.95 and is available from Bellissimo Coffee InfoGroup (espresso101.com). Wholesale discounts are available.

Additional information about WorldFest-Houston and a list of other winning films can be found on the organizations's website, worldfest.org.

Bellissimo is the specialty coffee industry's leading consulting company and well known as the producer of the award-winning coffee training DVDs and the publisher of coffee business manuals. Bellissimo’s worldwide client list includes Fortune 500 companies as well as American and International entrepreneurs. As a result of the success of his company, Bruce Milletto is recognized by the press and the coffee industry internationally as “the voice of North America’s specialty coffee industry.” Bellissimo is also the parent company of The American Barista & Coffee School , the premier professional school in the U.S. devoted to domestic and international specialty coffee business education and hands-on barista training.