News

South Korea’s Green Narae Media won the inaugural Unifrance Distribution Prize at this year’s Unifrance Rendez-Vous in Paris, claiming $10,290 in prize money honoring the distributor’s innovative local rollout of Trần Anh Hùng’s “The Taste of Things.”

Released in South Korea this past June, the Cannes prizewinner turned French Oscar submission went on to bank more than 45,000 local admissions, making the romantic drama a boutique success story for 2024. After buying the title off script, the Korean distributor put together a robust social media campaign that targeted young audiences while emphasizing the film’s mouth-watering content.

“[The film] contains many scenes of cooking and food that may cause stomach rumbling, which may affect viewers on an empty stomach,” teased the witty campaign. “Please be careful when watching.”

“They organized many events, most notably with [Michelin starred chef and ‘The Taste of Things’ actor] Pierre Gagnaire, who owns a renowned restaurant in Seoul,” says Charles Tesson, who oversees this new prize.

South Korean distributor Green Narae Media has won Unifrance’s first €10,000Distribution Award for its 2024 release of Tran Anh Hung’s culinary romance The Taste Of Things.

The inaugural award, launched with the Cnc, was designed to honour an international distribution company for its innovative and ambitious release of a French film.

The Taste Of Things stars Juliette Binoche and Benoit Magimel as two cooks navigating a slow-burning romance in late 19th-centuryFrance. Gaumont produced the film and has international rights.

Green Narae released the film in South Korea on 100 screens on June 19, 2024, ultimately expanding the release to 234 screens. Itwent on...

South Korean distributor Green Narae Media has won Unifrance’s first €10,000Distribution Award for its 2024 release of Tran Anh Hung’s culinary romance The Taste Of Things.

The inaugural award, launched with the Cnc, was designed to honour an international distribution company for its innovative and ambitious release of a French film.

The Taste Of Things stars Juliette Binoche and Benoit Magimel as two cooks navigating a slow-burning romance in late 19th-centuryFrance. Gaumont produced the film and has international rights.

Green Narae released the film in South Korea on 100 screens on June 19, 2024, ultimately expanding the release to 234 screens. Itwent on...

Gordon Ramsay's big personality has helped him break records and show his softer side. Ramsay offered sensitive advice to a struggling chef, showing his empathy and experience. Despite his tough reputation, working for Gordon Ramsay may provide valuable mentorship and guidance.

Throughout Gordon Ramsay's time in the public eye, he has mostly been known for his larger-than-life personality. After all, Gordon has been the kind of guy to cook for world leaders or engage in public feuds, and he has even called celebrities out.

Thankfully for Gordon, his big personality has helped him to do things like break records with his Hot Ones appearance. However, Gordon's daughter is a notably kind person, and he has shown his softer side, like when he mourned a MasterChef judge. Still, many fans were taken by surprise by how supportive Gordon was when he answered a distressed chef's question.

Gordon Ramsay Tried To...

In the months since it has premiered at Cannes, “The Taste of Things,” a lushly romantic love letter to French cooking, has quickly been anointed one of the best food-focused movies ever made. The film, now playing in selected theaters, revolves around the romance between Juliette Binoche’s Eugénie and wealthy gourmet Dodin Bouffant, played by Binoche’s former real-life partner Benoît Magimel. The story of the accomplished cook and her boss and lover simmers along leisurely until it comes to a full boil, all the while showcasing a cornucopia of lovingly-photographed products of the French countryside, from pears and cheeses to veal roast and truffled chicken.

Director Trân Anh Hùng, whose debut film “The Scent of Green Papaya” was described as “a poem for the eyes,” brings a similar sumptuous approach to his latest, layering in flavors of wit, sensuality and despair. Hùng, who has lived in France since...

Movies are designed to dazzle through sound and vision. That leaves three out of five senses untapped, at least until cinema reaches its inevitable maximum-immersive “feelie” stage. The Taste of Things, the latest from the French-Vietnamese filmmaker Tran Anh Hung, is one of those rare works that gives you the illusion of engaging much more than just your eyes and ears. “Sensuous” is too mild an adjective to describe the way that this drama films, focuses on, and fetishizes the food that the occupants of a 19th century kitchen in...

Juliette Binoche and Benoit Magimel in The Taste Of Things. Courtesy of IFC

Warning: Don’t see this film hungry! Delicious shots of delicious food in a luscious landscape fill the French romantic drama The Taste Of Things but it is the perfect Valentine’s Day movie, particularly if you are a foodie, or a romantic. A visually luscious film starring Juliette Binoche, the story centers on two people who express their love for each other and for fine food, by cooking together. Set in 1889 in an old rural manor house, The Taste Of Things creates a beautiful dreamworld in the French countryside where the abundance of the land provides all they need. The Taste Of Things is a feast for both the eyes and the hungry heart, with the bonus of the Oscar-winning Juliette Binoche. It was the official Oscar entry for France.

It all begins in the garden,...

The smell of the chocolate chip cookies is intoxicating. Juliette Binoche eats several as we talk at the London Hotel about the experience of shooting Anh Hung Tran’s celebration of sumptuous cooking, “The Taste of Things”, which won the Best Director award at Cannes and beat out “Anatomy of a Fall” to become France’s official Oscar submission. Binoche scoffs at the suggestion that the 19th-century romance about Eugénie (Binoche), who cooks for gourmet Dodin (Benoît Magimel), is in any way stuffy or conventional.

“It is showing this lifestyle that is different from nowadays,” she said. “It has to do with another rhythm, a slow motion in the way of living, taking in the environment, taking in feelings, taking in what you do. I don’t live this kind of life, and a lot of people don’t. And this film is very provocative. It looks like she is submissive to him,...

HO_00837_R (l-r.) Director Alexander Payne and actors Paul Giamatti and Da’Vine Joy Randolph on the set of their film The Holdovers, a Focus Features release. Credit: Seacia Pavao / © 2023 Focus Features LLC

Cinema St. Louis (Csl) is thrilled to unveil the 32nd Annual Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival (Sliff), set to captivate audiences from November 9th to 19th at the historic Hi-Pointe Theatre, Csl’s new forever home, as well as at multiple venues across the city including the Alamo Drafthouse, Webster University, Washington University and more.

Highlights of this year’s fest include:

Sliff’s Opening Night Party on 11/9 at the Hi-Pointe, where the fest will celebrate 50 Years of Hip-Hop in St. Louis, as explored through both film and music Signe Baumane on hand to accept this year’s Women in Film Award at a showing of her newest film, “My Love Affair with Marriage” on 11/11 La Passion de Dodin Bouffant...

The 2023 Cannes Market is behind us, and like clockwork, Neon managed to buy the winner of the Palme d’Or for the fourth straight year, Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall.”

But that wasn’t the only major sale. This year’s Marché du Film netted major domestic deals for some of the buzziest competition titles such as Todd Haynes’ “May December” and Aki Kaurismäki’s “Fallen Leaves,” as well as hot packages like “Paddington 3.” But uncertainty over the writers strike still loomed large, and distributors favored completed projects over packages.

Below are some of the deals we’ve tracked out of Cannes so far, and we’ll be updating this space with more sales as they come in.

Title: “Anselm”

Section: Special Screenings

Distributor: Sideshow and Janus Films

Wim Wenders had not one but two separate films play at this year’s Cannes, and now each have found a home.

Trần Anh Hùng’s “The Pot au Feu” has been acquired by Sapan Studios and IFC Films for domestic distribution. Produced by Olivier Delbosc and based upon Marcel Rouff’s novel “La Vie et la Passion de Dodin-Bouffant, gourmet,” the picture is set in late 19th-century France and concerns a relationship between an esteemed chef (Benoît Magimel) and his personal cook (Juliette Binoche), who is also his lover. The catch is Eugénie refuses to marry her employer and lover so, to win her over, the chef does something he has never done before and cooks for her.

To film cuisine in an unprecedented fashion, the director called upon Pierre Gagnaire as Culinary Director to prepare the food prior to filming. There was no fake food on the set and capturing the presentation required unrelenting discipline from technical teams who were bound to almost choreographic movements.

“Trần Anh Hùng’s sumptuous...

Sapan Studios and IFC Films have acquired U.S. rights to “The Pot-au-Feu,” Trần Anh Hùng’s (“The Scent of Green Papaya”) lush gastronomy-themed romance which competed at the Cannes Film Festival and won best director. The movie is headlined by two of France’s biggest stars, Juliette Binoche and Benoit Magimel, who won this year’s Cesar Award for “Pacifiction.”

“The Pot-au-Feu” was produced by Olivier Delbosc at Curiosa Films and is represented in international markets by Gaumont.

The movie is one of the first titles co-acquired by Sapan Studios and IFC Films as part of their production and acquisition deal. Sapan Studios is a new TV and film production/distribution company run by former AMC Networks CEO Josh Sapan.

Set in France in 1885, “The Pot-au-Feu” follows the life of Dodin Bouffant (Magimel) as a preeminent chef who has been living with his personal cook and lover Eugénie (Binoche) for over two decades.

The film is Picturehouse Entertainment’s third acquisition at the Cannes Film Festival.

Picturehouse Entertainment has acquired UK and Ireland rights to Tran Anh Hung’s Cannes Competition title The Pot-Au-Feu from France’s Gaumont.

Set in the world of French gastronomy in 1885, the film stars Juliette Binoche as an esteemed cook who has a long-term relationship with a gourmet, played by Benoit Magimel.

It marks the latest feature from Vietnam-born Hung, who won the Caméra d’Or at Cannes in 1993 with The Scent Of Green Papaya, and returned to the festival with The Vertical Ray Of The Sun in...

There’s food porn, which shows like Chef’s Table and Top Chef, not to mention last year’s horror hit movie The Menu, have turned into widely popular entertainment. And then there’s art house food porn, a subgenre that possibly dates back to Marco Ferreri’s 1973 satire La Grande Bouffe, and whose other examples include Babette’s Feast, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, Tampopo, Chocolat and Like Water for Chocolate. The latter films tend to be made in a language other than English, and they’re less about chefs competing for Michelin stars, or glowing reviews from Pete Wells, than about food as a way of life.

Where else but France, then, as the setting for the latest, and certainly one of the most appetizing, art house food porn flicks to come along in a while? Tràn Anh Hùng’s The Pot-au-Feu (La Passion du Dodin-Bouffant) is...

One of the hottest European projects on sale at Cannes, “The Pot Au Feu,” Tran Anh Hung’s period romance starring Juliette Binoche and Benoit Magimel has already been nabbed by major international distributors. Gaumont is handling sales on the movie.

The movie, which is currently shooting in a French castle, is set in the world of French gastronomy in 1885 and charts the relationship between Eugenie, an esteemed cook, and Dodin, the gourmet she has been working for over the last 20 years. Growing fonder of one another, their bond turns into a romance and gives rise to delicious dishes that impress even the world’s most illustrious chefs. When Dodin is faced with Eugenie’s reluctance to commit to him, he decides to start cooking for her.

“The Pot au Feu” has been acquired by Canada (Mongrel), Latin America and Portugal (Sun Distribution), Germany (Weltkino), Italie (Lucky Red), Israel (Lev...

In the run up to Cannes, Gaumont is launching sales on “The Pot of Feu,” Tran Anh Hung’s period romance starring Juliette Binoche and Benoit Magimel. The movie is currently shooting in a French castle.

Set in the world of French gastronomy in 1885, “The Pot of Feu” charts the relationship between Eugenie, an esteemed cook, and Dodin, the fine gourmet she has been working for over the last 20 years. Growing fonder of one another, their bond turns into a romance and gives rise to delicious dishes that impress even the world’s most illustrious chefs. When Dodin is faced with Eugenie’s reluctance to commit to him, he decides to start cooking for her.

Pierre Gagnaire, the 14 Michelin starred-chef, is serving as culinary counselor on the film and also has a small part in it. The story is inspired by the famous French gastronome Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin.

“The Pot...

Title: Step Up To The Plate (Entre les Bras) Cinema Guild Director: Paul Lacoste Cast: Michel Bras, Sébastian Bras, Olivier Roellinger, Michel Troisgros, Pascal Barbot, Alain Passard, Gerald Passedat, Nadia Santini, Pierre Gagnaire Screened at: Review 2, NYC, 8/28/12 Opens: September 14, 2012 With a baseball metaphor aptly chosen to entitle a story of a chef’s passing the cutlery and dishes to his son, “Step Up to the Plate” takes a look at a high-end restaurant in the South of France that boasts a coveted three stars from the Michelin guide book. If the story is not as quaint as the recent “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” (an 85-year-old sushi master [ Read More ]...

Photo by NicoleWilder/Bravo

There havebeen some serious changes made to Top Chef Masters this season. First of all hostKelly Choi has been replaced by the omnipresent Ausie Curtis Stone. Legendaryfood critic Ruth Reichl will sidle up beside her comrade James Oseland at theJudges’ Table. And the format of the show has completely changed. In a recentconference call interview Stone, Reichl and Oseland talked about the newset-up, their celebrity guests and what they would be eating if they could eatanything in the world.

Stone openedup about the latest installment of TopChef Masters, saying, “This season we really mixed it up. We changed theformat and all the chefs were in the show together and in the previous seasonsthere was… tournament [style] and two of the chefs went through. But in thisone we followed the format of Top Chefwhere all the chefs begin and in each episode, one chef’s eliminated. So Ithink...