17/03/2005 - Cuisine, life and politics: these are the ingredients of Politiki kouzina by Greek director Tassos Boulmetis, a cocktail that blown up the national box office, beating all American blockbusters

‘I use cuisine to talk about politics. Everything in our society goes through the mouth, literally and metaphorically.’ This is how Tassos Boulmetis introduces his film Politiki kouzina (A Touch of Spice), a film which attracted more than a million Greek spectators and thus came second after Titanic’s record admissions.

This film, the first Greek movie Village Roadshow has produced, will be released tomorrow (3/18) in Italy, distributed by Lady Film . A Touch of Spice is about a young Greek, Fanis, who grew up in Istanbul. His grand-father, a philosopher in the kitchen, teaches him how life is like cooking : you always need a pinch of salt to enhance the flavours. Fanis then moves to Athens and continues to learn. He eventually becomes an amazing chef who knows how to use his talent to spice up the lives of the people around him.

‘80% of this film was taken from my life and my family’s, ‘ said the director when we met him in Rome. ‘In the 60’s, my family, like 40 000 others, was forced to go back to Greece because of the conflict with Cyprus. It took me 30 years to find the strength to go back to Istanbul, but when I did, it was the first step towards reconciliation and towards this movie.’

Shot in Athens and Istanbul, Politiki kouzina was released in Greece on the 24th of October 2003 with a record number of admissions : 65 000 admissions for only 41 screens. On the second week-end, this figure raised by 50%, and soon, the film beat all the American blockbusters. It stayed on top of the box-office for seven weeks in a row and sold 1.2M tickets.
This film also won 8 National Film Awards in Greece, and the Public’s Prize at the International Film Festival in Thessalonica. It was sold to 36 countries.

(Translated from Italian)