The first film to hit the Selling Fast list in this year’s mouth-watering Sydney Film Festival line-up, Maurice Dekkers’ Ants on a Shrimp: Noma in Tokyo doco follows celebrity chef René Redzepi as he and his intrepid team relocate the world-famous Copenhagen kitchen to a basement in Tokyo's Mandarin Oriental hotel.
Infusing Nordic sensibility into a 14-course menu drawing on local Japanese fare proves far more difficult than the molecular maestro Redzepi first assumed, ensuring tensions boil on screen. Lucky Sydneysiders can book into a special event that pairs the movie with an inspired meal at head chef Ross Lusted’s three-hat The Bridge Room.
While Ants on a Shrimp is the only food-centric movie being plated up at the Sydney Film Festival this year, there’s a spectacular international spread on offer so we’ve taken the liberty of suggesting five fine flicks with feeds to match.
Food and film
1. Regular Ken Loach collaborator Paul Laverty, writer of both his Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or-winners I, Daniel Blake and The Wind That Shakes the Barley also penned Spanish directorIcíar Bollaín’s heart-warming drama The Olive Tree (El Olivo). When a family falls on hard financial times, the uprooting of one particular tree at the heart of their olive oil business symbolises the loss of a much-loved way of life. Serve with olive oil ice-cream and Pedro Ximénez cake.
2. Russian filmmaker Vitaliy Manskiy was only allowed into rogue communist state North Korea under the strict provision that his doco Under The Sun (V Paprscích Slunce) detailing the lives of an ‘ordinary’ Pyongyang family, would be scripted by government officials. Agreeing to play along, he kept the camera rolling at all times, sneakily capturing the manipulative propaganda of the North Korean elite, leaving them with egg on their faces. Serve with Korean steamed egg.
3. Next, a documentary from Japan. In the wake of the 2011 tsunami and subsequent reactor meltdown, Watanabe is forced to relocate his oyster-shucking business and bring in back-up from Chinese labourers. New York-based Japanese director Kazuhiro Soda’s Oyster Factory (Kaki Kouba) captures the painstaking work, carried out almost entirely by hand while perched on wooden stools, detailing intimate family drama, notions of national identity and the march of progress. Serve with oyster and mushroom hot pot.
4. Inspired by the dark deeds of real-life serial killer Raman Raghav, who terrorised Mumbai in the 60s, Anurag Kashyap’s riveting cat-and-mouse thriller Psycho Raman (aka Raman Raghav 2.0) posits a city preyed upon by a copycat killer in Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s Ramanna. Vicky Kaushal plays Raghavan, the troubled young cop in hot pursuit who’s harbouring a drug addiction. Almost too hot to handle, serve with Indian spiced lentils and roast pumpkin.
5. Greek New Wave director Athina Rachel Tsangari started out producing movies for Richard Linklater and The Lobster's Yorgos Lanthimos before cutting loose. Chevalier adroitly skewers the testosterone-inflated male ego on an absurd men-only fishing trip aboard a yacht that soon descends into piggish penis-comparing. Serve with swordfish souvlaki.
Images courtesy of Sydney Film Festival and SBS Food.
The Sydney Film Festival runs 8-19 June. Find program information and ticket details at the festival website here.
SBS Food is a 24/7 foodie channel for all Australians, with a focus on simple, authentic and everyday food inspiration from cultures everywhere. NSW stream only. Read more about SBS Food
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