With the curiosity that moves a good cook, Juliette Binoche entered the kitchens of the Basque Culinary Center as soon as she arrived to recall those smells of the stews that are cooked over a slow fire, the same ones that she prepared as Eugénie, the protagonist of his last film La passion de Dodin Bouffant (A fuego lento). "I didn't take cooking classes before filming, but I didn't need it, I've cooked all my life," said the actress jokingly. With an elegant black dress and as if she were another marmiton, she greeted the students of the center who, with chefs Sébastien Zozaya and Fabien Feldmann, prepared a dinner inspired by the film and in honor of one of the most beloved actresses of the festival of Sant Sebastian
Before the diners sat down and aware that all eyes were focused on her, she calmly walked around a table that had been turned into a period banquet on Friday for the closing of the culinary section of the festival. And he vindicated the cuisine and the stories that are born from sincerity: "For me, what interests me most in life is the truth and, of course, telling stories, and these two qualities were brought together by Tran Anh Hung's project ".
After winning the award for best director in Cannes, the Vietnamese brought his latest film to the Zinemaldia and with this last night he won the award for Best Culinary Zinema Film. "Every director considers throughout his life to show an artistic discipline: I decided to portray the culinary art", explains the filmmaker in conversation with La Vanguardia. "Where I grew up everything was very ugly, the only beauty I saw was in the dishes my mother cooked".
This beauty and this passion for cooking is what she has tried to convey in the film set in the 19th century, which will represent France at the Oscars, and which narrates a story of love but above all of admiration between a cook and a gourmet of the time (played by Benoît Magimel).
Culinary Zinema united cinema and gastronomy with four more accompanying screenings, each with a themed dinner linked to the films. This 13th edition opened on Monday with the world premiere of the Argentine miniseries Nada, by directors Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat, and which features a special appearance by Robert De Niro. The Asian flavors arrived with Xiao Haiping and his feature film Nan fang nan fang (Back to the south) and then it was the turn of the documentaries: Pachacútec- La Escuela Improbable, by director Mariano Carranza, which narrates the emotional story of three Peruvian chefs who were enabled to succeed by a cooking school in an underprivileged neighborhood of Lima; and the day-to-day life of a young woman who works as an intern at some of the most prestigious restaurants in the world that hire She Chef Melanie Liebheit and Gereon Wetzel.
The possibility of going beyond the screen and entering the narrative universe of the film through its kitchen has turned this into one of the audience's favorite sections: the tickets (80 euros) are sold out in six minutes. "Reasonable, considering that you dine with the stars," offers a diner, pointing at Binoche with her gaze.
