Berlinale’s Culinary Cinema to Provide 15 Visual Feasts with Star Chefs Stepping Up to the Hot Plate

LONDON –  Jessica Yu’s Last Call At The Oasis and Alexa Karolinski’s Oma & Bella are among the 15 titles set to unspool during this year’s Culinary Cinema sidebar at the Berlinale next month.

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Yu’s documentary details the growing global water crisis and it’s impact and is backed by Participant Media while Karolinski presents a real life portrait of two elderly Jewish women in Berlin with a deep fondness for good food who stayed on in Berlin after surviving the holocaust and now spend most of the time cooking Eastern European food to remember their childhood before the war.

Organizers said the motto for the foodie visual and eating feast during this year Berlin International Film Festival will be “Trust in Taste” and have no less than five world premieres programmed.

Held Feb. 12 through 17 in the Martin-Gropius-Bau, the culinary cinema sidebar will also see star chefs Michael Kempf, Christian Lohse, Marco Müller from Berlin as well as Andoni Luis Aduriz from the Basque Country serve up a meal inspired by the movies unspooling in the “Gropius Mirror” restaurant, a tent lined with mirrors next to the European Film market building.

Festival director Dieter Kosslick described the sidebar as being all about trust.

“Consumers shouldn’t just focus on organic tags and finely printed labels, but above all trust their sense of taste,” Kosslick said. “Experienced cooks can taste if food has been industrially mass produced, and if binders, flavor enhancers or other additives have been used. Taste is a matter of experience and that’s what you can also gain at the Berlinale’s Culinary Cinema.”

The section also includes four short film in its lineup.
 
 Films in Culinary Cinema 2012

Canela (Cinnamon) Mexico
By Jordi Mariscal
World premiere

Canned Dreams Finland
Documentary by Katja Gauriloff
International premiere

Comme un chef (The Chef) France
By Daniel Cohen
International premiere
 
Entre les Bras (Step Up to the Plate) France
Documentary by Paul Lacoste
World premiere

Hindsight Republic of Korea
By Lee Hyeon-seung
European premiere

Joyful Reunion Taiwan/China
By Tsao Jui-Yuan
World premiere
 
Last Call at the Oasis USA
Documentary by Jessica Yu
International premiere
 
Lupe el de la Vaca (Lupe of the Cow) Mexico
Documentary by Blanca X. Aguerre
International premiere

Mugaritz B.S.O. Spain
Documentary by Felipe Ugarte, Juantxo Sardon
German premiere
 
Oma & Bella Germany/USA
Documentary by Alexa Karolinski
World premiere

Das Rohe und das Gekochte (The Raw and the Cooked) Germany/Taiwan
Documentary by Monika Treut
World premiere