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Slow Food Story
Italy, 2013
Language: Italian
Director: Stefano Sardo
What's it about?
In the late '80s, professional gourmet and activist Carlo Petrini launched Slow Food, an international anti-fast-food resistance movement. From the tiny town of Bra in Italy, the Slow Food movement has grown to become a revolution, that now has roots in more than 150 countries. Cheese-makers, vintners, and artisanal food folk, toast Slow Food for bringing about a change in consciousness that shook the very foundation of gastronomy.
El Bulli: Cooking in Progress
M
Germany, 2011
Director: Gereon Wetzel
What's it about?
For six months of the year, renowned Spanish chef Ferran Adrià closes his 3 Michelin star restaurant El Bulli – repeatedly voted the world's best – and heads to his Barcelona cooking laboratory with his team to create a new menu for the coming season. Anything goes – except copying oneself. A rare inside look at some of the world's most innovative and exciting cooking; as Adrià himself puts it, "the more bewilderment, the better!"
Watch El Bulli: Cooking in Progress now
The Farmer and the Chef
USA, 2014
Language: English
Director: Michael T. Whalen
What's it about?
David Kinch is a world famous chef with one of the best restaurants in the world. Cynthia Sandberg is a biodynamic farmer known worldwide for her award-winning heirloom tomatoes. And one thing connects them - the food at Manresa Restaurant in Los Gatos, California. Together the farmer and the chef are revolutionising how diners experience a modern Californian meal.
Watch The Farmer and the Chef now
Cooking at the World's End
Spain, 2016
Language: Spanish
Director: Alberto Baamonde Bello
What's it about?
Galician nouvelle cuisine has the peculiar trait of a love for exploring the past, for recovering the flavours left behind by the modern world, for lending dignity to products considered inferior. This film follows the journey across Galicia led by a unique chefs association: Grupo Nove, and offers a realistic portrait striving to unravel, through gastronomy, the delicate balance between tradition and modernity at the world's end.
Watch Cooking at the World's End now
Deconstructing Dani Garcia
Spain, 2016
Language: Spanish
Directors: Iñigo Ruiz, Alfonso Cortés-Cavanillas
What's it about?Dani García, one of the Spain's top chefs, finds himself at a critical point in his career as his restaurant closes early 2014, and sees his two Michelin stars and his prestige at stake. This documentary follows the reinvention process of a chef, the creation process of a restaurant and a menu of haute cuisine in a record time.
Watch Deconstructing Dani Garcia now
Cooking up a Tribute
Spain, 2015
Language: Spanish
Director: Andrea Gómez, Luis González
What's it about?
Brothers Joan, Josep and Jordi Roca – masterminds behind the triple-hatted El Celler de Can Roca in northern Catalonia – decide to shut the place down for five weeks and embark upon a monumental journey across South America with the entire kitchen and dining-room staff. Their mission: to return with 57 new dishes informed by the traditions and cultures of the places they visit.
Watch Cooking Up a Tribute now
Kings of Pastry
USA/France, 2009
Language: English, French
Director: Chris Hegedus, D.A. Pennebaker
What's it about?
Acclaimed documentary makers D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus take us on an behind-the-scenes look at the most prestigious and grueling pastry competition in France. We follow US-based chef Jacquy Pfeiffer as he returns to France to compete against 15 of France's leading pastry chefs, creating everything from delicate chocolates to six-foot sugar sculptures in the hope to obtain the coveted title of Best Craftsman in France.
[link title="Kings of Pastry review: Unexpected thrills in a French kitchen" url="node/59393"]
Spinning Plates
USA, 2013
Language: English, Spanish
Director: Joseph Levy
What's it about?
This film tells the story of three extraordinary restaurants and the incredible people who make them what they are: a world-renowned restaurant whose chef must battle a life-threatening condition, a 150-year-old family restaurant still standing only because of the unbreakable bond with the community, and a fledgling Mexican restaurant whose owners are risking everything to provide for their young daughter.
Good Things Await
Denmark, 2014
Language: Danish
Director: Phie Ambo
What's it about?
Niels Stokholm runs a biodynamic farm with his wife Rita in Denmark, and distribute their produce to some of the best restaurants in the world. But not everyone is equally fond of their holistic methods and the authorities threaten to close down the farm. The documentary recounts their struggle to make sure that they are not the last to do agriculture the way they do, but some of the first.
Good Things Await review: An inspiring and good-looking documentary
A Matter of Taste
USA, 2011
Language: English
Director: Sally Rowe
What's it about?
Paul Liebrandt was only 24 when he became the youngest chef in history to receive a three-star rating from the New York Times for his innovative style of haute cuisine. But, after he quit his job in 2001 over a menu dispute, his career came to a standstill, and he was unable to find work in a post-9/11 New York City. Director Sally Rowe tracks the highs and lows of Liebrandt's nine-year journey as he attempts to get his life back on track.
But wait there's more...
MIFF 2015 Talking Pictures: Foodie-ism: Are We Full Up?
You will also be able to watch a discussion around food culture filmed last year at the MIFF by a panel of experts composed of The Age’s Dani Valent, Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic Jonathan Gold (City of Gold, MIFF 2015), chef Shane Delia, Gelato Messina’s Declan Lee, intolerable foodie Kate McLennan and food blogger Emily Naismith.
Watch it here: Talking Pictures: Foodie-ism: Are We Full Up?
A series of three fascinating TV documentaries hosted by haute cuisine legend Michel Roux Jr. is also available:
- Chocolate Perfection with Michel Roux Jr.
- Patisserie with Michel Roux Jr.
- The First Masterchef: Michel Roux on Escoffier
