European tour for a touch of Greek spice
While the Belgium summer seems more like Autumn, there are arrives on our screens a little touch of spice. Politiki kouzina (A touch of Spice) by Greek director Tassos Boulmetis comes out on Wednesday in the Belgian cinemas, distributed by the Coopérative Nouveau Cinéma .
On the back of phenomenal success at home, where the film accumulated more than one and half million admissions, beating certain American blockbusters, A touch of Spice represented Greece at the Oscars, and garnered 8 national prizes and the public prize and best film at the Thessalonica Festival in 2003. It was sold to more than 36 countries notably to Spain, Finland, Sweden, Italy, Germany and Austria. It will come out in Denmark at the end of August.
Written, co-produced and directed by Tassos Boulmetis, of Turkish origin, the film recounts Fanis’ return to Istanbul, town of his birth. He had lived for 35 years in Athens, and in rediscovering his grandfather, cook and philosopher (and also his childhood sweetheart) realises he has forgotten that little essential something in cooking as in life, the pinch of salt, without which everything tastes bland. Romantic but autobiographically based, the film deals too with the reconciliation between the two countries through this imaginary character and his childhood souvenirs.
With Babette’s Feast, The cook, the thief, his wife and her lover, Chocolate and Mostly Martha, European cinema multiplies films dealing with culinary traditions, no doubt because recipes are a country’s most shared secrets and European cinema has never managed to anchor itself in a single cultural identity.
(Translated from French)
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