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Berlinale Dishes Up a Cinematic Feast

Eating, Drinking, and Seeing Movies

By Cameron Abadi in Berlin

Epicurean cinephiles have a double treat at this year's Berlin International Film Festival: a series of movies devoted to food, complete with thematic dinners.

When you say food in connection with movies, most people might tend to think of popcorn rather than fine dining. But for prominent German gourmand Dieter Kosslick -- who also happens to be director of the Berlin International Film Festival -- the two go together. "After 25 years in the film business, I know one thing for certain: without good food, nothing happens," he announced at the start of this year’s festival.

Kosslick has often used his clout to help move the film industry and Berlin beyond the usual gastronomic clichés. This year's Berlinale features his most ambitious effort yet: the movie and dining series "Eat, Drink, See Movies."

Organized in conjunction with the German chapter of the sustainable eating non-governmental organization Slow Food and the German Academy for Culinary Studies, the series highlights new social and culinary trends among German diners and international filmmakers. For Carlo Petrini, president of Slow Food International, the Berlinale’s incorporation of gastronomy is obvious: "Film and food are made to entertain people," he writes in the program for the series.

Ecologically friendly

As part of the program, Berlin’s top chefs have been commissioned to prepare ecologically-friendly meals specially designed to complement a series of culinary-themed films. The screenings and dining are taking place in the "Gropius Mirror" restaurant, a 1920s style "mirror tent" specially designed and erected a few blocks from the red carpets of Potsdamer Platz, the heart of the festival.

The films span the spectrum of film culture, from cult German director Dorris Dörrie’s "How to Cook Your Life," a documentary about the Zen Buddhist priest and cook Edward Espe Brown, to the vinophlile road movie "Sideways," to "Bushi no Ichibun" ("Love and Honor"), a Japanese feature about a samurai food taster who goes blind.

A number of the films focus on the social ills arising from the industrialization of the food industry. "Black Gold" focuses on the convoluted chain that brings coffee to your breakfast table while the documentary "The Real Dirt on Farmer John" deals with an independent farmer in California trying to survive against the odds. Together with the recent American anti-fast food films "Super Size Me" and "Fast Food Nation," they show that food is increasingly being treated as a political issue by filmmakers.

"Muckraking is more than just a trend," the Berlin-based British wine critic and "Eat, Drink, See Movies" moderator Stuart Pigott told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "Frankly, there’s just a lot of muck to rake."

And it’s precisely around these ecological and social issues that filmmakers and food enthusiasts have no problem finding common ground. Slow Food Deutschland, which is responsible for organizing the culinary portion of the "Eat, Drink, See Movie" program, focuses on enjoyment, as well as on ecology. "According to our motto, food should be 'good, clean and fair,'" says Otto Geisel, head of Slow Food Deutschland.

All the chefs will be preparing their meals according to the Slow Food philosophy, which means, among other things, that they’ll be limited to using local ingredients. For the Thanksgiving-style meal prepared by top German chef Bobby Bräuer to complement "The Real Dirt on Farmer John," an American Butterball turkey was out of the question; instead, he used a bird raised in the Brandenburg region around Berlin.

Growing fast

While the Berlinale may help Slow Food make deeper inroads into German society, the organization had been doing quite well on its own in recent years. The German branch of Slow Food is the fastest-growing chapter in the world, doubling its membership in the last two years alone. And the blooming landscape of organic food stores in German cities further attests to the increasing popularity of healthy eating among Germans. "After years of orienting themselves towards Italy and France, Germans are now re-discovering their own regional specialties," Geisel says.

But, as Pigott points out, the Slow Food philosophy has, to a great extent, remained a concern of the rich elite, while the less well-off rely more on industrial food products. "The twentieth-century has just been devastating for Germany, and now they have a lot of catching up to do," he says.

Slow Food Deutschland is investing its resources in the younger generation, for example by supporting vegetable gardens for German elementary schools. "Kids need to see what it looks like for a squash to grow and ripen," Geisel says.

He also admits, though, that temperament may always be a limiting factor in German food culture. "Part of enjoying a good meal is meeting around a table, being open and friendly," he says. "Germans are more reserved and often don’t feel comfortable doing that."

Going down well

Some German critics, however, have been sceptical of Kosslick’s attempts to popularize fine dining. Wolfram Siebeck, the food critic of the influential German weekly newspaper Die Zeit, wrote: "Eating well is an entirely elitist concern."

Pigott disagrees. "Anyone who has ever watched a good movie knows what it means to digest it afterwards. That’s the same process involved in enjoying a good meal, or a good wine."

Both forms of sensory stimulation in the "Eat, Drink, See Movies" program seem to be palatable to the audiences. "After each event, they’re giving one round of applause for the movie," Geisel says. "And then they give another round for the meal."