About

Presented in conjunction with the exhibition 'Harvest' (28 June – 21 September 2014) at GOMA.

'Harvest: Food on Film' showcases a rich vein of contemporary filmmaking that explores food production, consumption and presentation as vivid storytelling motifs. Feature films and documentaries that take food as their subject variously touch on narratives of connection; identity and tradition; power and status; and our deepening awareness of the larger political and ethical framework that surround our agricultural systems and the impact of our food choices. The presence of food on the cinema screen often expresses forms of spoken and unspoken communication between characters. It can convey identity with a dish that evokes yearning of home; transgression through food deprivation or straying into forbidden consumption; or power and status in the display of excess. The recent rise of documentary stories has enabled a focus on the personalities behind food creation as well as the ethical and environmental considerations of farming systems and food politics.

QAGOMA thanks the National Film and Sound Archive Australia, Canberra; National Film Archive of India, Pune; and Chinese-Taipei Film Archive, Taipei for providing film prints for this program. Program curated by Rosie Hays, Australian Cinémathèque.

List of Works

• Le Charme Discret de la Bourgeoisie (The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie) 1972 | Director: Luis Buñuel
• Ashani Sanket (Distant Thunder) 1973 | Director: Satyajit Ray
• La Grande Bouffe 1973 | Director: Marco Ferreri
• Tampopo (Dandelion) 1985 | Director: Jûzô Itami
• Babettes Gæstebud (Babette's Feast) 1987 | Director: Gabriel Axel
• The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover 1989 | Director: Peter Greenaway
• Delicatessen 1991 | Directors: Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Marc Caro
• Como Agua Para Chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate) 1992 | Director: Alfonso Arau
• Mùi đu đủ Xanh (The Scent of the Green Papaya) 1993 | Director: Tran Anh Hung
• Yin Shi Nan Nu (Eat Drink Man Woman) 1994 | Director: Ang Lee
• Big Night 1996 | Directors: Campbell Scott, Stanley Tucci
• Soul Food 1997 | Director: George Tillman Jr.
• Festen (The Celebration) 1998 | Director: Thomas Vinterberg
• Chocolat 2000 | Director: Lasse Hallström
• Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse (The Gleaners and I) 2000 | Director: Agnés Varda
• Bella Martha (Mostly Martha) 2001 | Director: Sandra Nettelbeck
• Slow Food Revolution 2003 | Director: Carlo Buralli
• Super Size Me 2004 | Director: Morgan Spurlock
• Darwin's Nightmare 2004 | Director: Hubert Sauper
• Sideways 2004 | Director: Alexander Payne
• The Real Dirt on Farmer John 2005 | Director: Taggart Siegel
• Waitress 2007 | Director: Adrienne Shelly
• La Graine et le Mulet (The Secret of the Grain) 2007 | Director: Abdellatif Kechiche
• King Corn 2007 | Director: Aaron Woolf
• Pressure Cooker 2008 | Directors: Mark Becker, Jennifer Grausman
• Hunger 2008 | Director: Steve Mcqueen
• Food Inc. 2008 | Director: Robert Kenner
• Food Matters 2008 | Directors: James Colquhoun, Carlo Ledesma
• Soul Kitchen 2009 | Director: Fatih Akin
• Kings of Pastry 2009 | Directors: Chris Hegedus, D A Pennebaker
• The End of the Line 2009 | Director: Rupert Murray
• Le Quattro Volte 2010 | Director: Michelangelo Frammartino
• El Bulli: Cooking in Progress 2011 | Director: Gereon Wetzel
• Bitter Seeds 2011 | Director: Micha X Peled
• Jiro Dreams of Sushi 2011 | Director: David Gelb
• Spinning Plates | Director: Joseph Levy
• Entre les Bras (Step Up to the Plate) 2012 | Director: Paul Lacoste
• Les Saveurs du Palais (Haute Cuisine) 2012 | Director: Christian Vincent
• A Place at the Table 2012 | Directors: Kristi Jacobson, Lori Silverbush
• Falafelism: The Politics of Food in the Middle East 2013 | Director: Ari A Cohen
• The Lunchbox 2013 | Director: Ritesh Batra
• Red Obsession 2013 | Directors: David Roach, Warwick Ross
• Lygon Street – Si Parla Italiano 2013 | Directors: Angelo Pricolo, Shannon Swan
• The Smokehouse 2013 | Director: Mark Welker, Aaron Cuthbert