The ‘flavors’ of Philippine culinary cinema

FDCP Chairperson Liza Diño-Seguerra with director Carlo Enciso Catu, competition director of Cinema Culinarya 2022.

What’s the similarity between meals and cinema? Each transport us to a different place or time. Each have the magic of bringing individuals collectively.

It isn’t an overstatement to say that maybe the Filipino lingua franca is certainly “meals.” Meals is our native tongue and love language. We present our appreciation by laboring on one thing particular within the kitchen for the individuals we love. Cooking has additionally grow to be a method of being alone with oneself — we put collectively our scattered ideas by slicing and dicing and mixing in silence like a sacred ritual, a meditation, or a prayer. We bond over meals. A Filipino celebration can’t be referred to as so and not using a salo-salo. It could possibly solely be celebratory when there may be meals, easy or grand, and when it’s shared.

It’s unimaginable to have a bit of our identification as individuals come within the type of one thing edible, pleasant, and nourishing. Our delicacies displays our tradition and expertise as a result of there are as many variations of adobo as our greater than 7,000 islands. The substances fluctuate in accordance to what’s accessible or considerable within the space. The meals is straightforward but comforting. It additionally exhibits our many brushes with different cultures, by commerce or colonization, and the way we made these influences into our very personal.

It’s perplexing that this intimate intermingling of meals and identification doesn’t present a lot in our different ardour — the films. Movie is an important medium for telling the human expertise, and what higher expertise to know than what our tongues already know?

I used to be very excited to attend final week’s Cinema Culinarya Movie Pageant opening ceremony, albeit just about nonetheless. That is one other step ahead to harnessing that a part of us value exploring additional and digging deeper.

Philippine culinary cinema

In the event you solely know “Eat Pray Love,” “Chef,” “Ratatouille,” “Julie and Julia,” “Chocolat,” “Lady on Prime,” or the splendid “Eat Drink Man Lady” by Ang Lee, it’s excessive time to see Rory Quintos’s “Kailangan Kita” for a style of that Filipino taste in culinary cinema. The story follows the story of Lena, her household’s designated cook dinner, set in Bicol, the house of laing and Bicol Categorical. It’s a balanced and sensuous concoction of romance and household drama, with a contact on conventional gender roles, politics, and dealing overseas.

Additionally it is value mentioning the memorable meals cameos within the films, such because the adobo in “American Adobo,” the sinigang in “Miss Granny,” the isaw in “English Solely Please,” the tortang talong in “Anak” and Jed’s pochero (or afritada) in “Kasal, Kasali, Kasalo.” Judy Ann Santos additionally starred within the indie movie “Kusina.” Extra lately, in 2018, we had the comedy “Kusina Kings” and the meals documentary “Ulam” following the rise of the Filipino meals motion within the US. Whereas we’ve got these titles, films on meals or cooking have been few and much between. This subgenre stays a possible that isn’t absolutely maximized.

Cinema Culinarya

The celebration of Filipino Meals Month yearly in April goals to advertise and protect native culinary traditions. This yr’s Cinema Culinarya Movie Pageant is being led by filmmaker Carlo Enciso Catu whom I’m very pleased with. He was additionally the competition director for SineKabalen, the place the choice to make a bit on culinary cinema was first launched. His desires of selling Kapampangan movies by movie festivals to offer a platform to the area’s creatives proceed with a extra monumental, extra nationwide scope as he now helms Cinema Culinarya, a celebration of the various culinary traditions not simply of Pampanga however of the nation.

This complete new competition seeks to showcase tasteful narratives, beautiful delicacies, and colourful traditions from all around the Philippines. This yr’s movie fiesta is being led by the Nationwide Fee for Tradition and the Arts and goes with the theme: “Pagkaing Filipino, Susi sa Pag-unlad at Pagbabago.”

This yr, 27 scrumptious movies are featured, together with full-length and brief films grouped below in-competition classes and in exhibition. There may also be talk-back classes with the filmmakers to complement the competition expertise additional. The thrilling information is that everybody can watch the competition movies on-line without cost at their Vimeo account (bit.ly/cinemaculinarya). Unfold the phrase.

Seven thousand islands adobo

There’s adobong puti, adobo sa gata, adobong pula (with achuete), adobong dilaw (with turmeric), candy adobo, adobong tuyo, adobong masabaw, and many others. — our narratives as an archipelagic nation enjoys all kinds of textures and flavors, too. We get inventive with the substances we’ve got at hand and create tastes appropriate for our palate, simply as our filmmakers draw from our many alternative experiences and geographies.

Our smorgasbord, like our movies, is a wealthy buffet of assorted tastes, an invite to communion and dialog with others who should not acquainted with our menu or to easily partake in one another’s slice of life to savor and revel in. Extra lately, the desk is not only for the change between our areas. The desk is now open to everybody within the international village. Curious that whereas meals and movie remind us of our identification, each additionally be part of us to the world.

My love affair with meals began early. I keep in mind rising up, lingering across the kitchen, watching my uncle and grandma cook dinner gourmand Filipino dishes for our weekend salo-salo. At 10, I discovered the best way to odor fish, contact the meat and squeeze the fruit to seek out the best substances within the farmers’ market.

Oh, how the aroma of one thing cooking, even the considered meals, opens the floodgates of recollections! It reminds us of even the faintest remembrance cob-webbed in some obscure nook of our thoughts. Movie and meals remind us of who we’re and the place we got here from. Movie has this similar energy of transporting us to a different place and time.

My ardour for cooking additionally allowed me to see the worth of utilizing my artwork of constructing meals to convey individuals collectively. Now, as chairperson of the Movie Improvement Council of the Philippines, I consider that the artwork of constructing movies may convey a nation collectively. It may be a channel to advertise historical past, heritage and tradition.

As one enthusiastic about movie and meals, I’m trying ahead to extra intertwining the 2 within the close to future. We have now so many flavors to discover on this regard — as many as our variations of adobo right here in our nation of greater than 7,000 islands, and all equally scrumptious, pleasant and nourishing.