The peasant cook: Paolo Masieri's cooking secrets

Presented at the 61st Venice International Film Festival in 2004, Farmer Cook is a short film about a cook, his land and the nature he brings to his dishes.
The great passion for haute cuisine of Luca Guadagnino prompted him to shoot this docufilm on one of the most innovative chefs on the Italian scene.
Through the prying eye of his camera, he reveals to us, in a tale of images interwoven with the sounds of nature, a reality that seems hard to believe still exists, outside of glamour, fashions and trends.
Paolo Masieri has a country house in the hills between Liguria and France, where he grows his vegetables and herbs. In the morning, he meets the fishermen, prepares the kitchen and entrusts the tasks to his assistants.
Very few words, lots of images of a daily routine marked by work, reflection and the vision of a chef who leads a lonely war, with his wife Barbara, against clichés and the show cooking of the moment. His is an innovative cuisine that starts from the sea of Sanremo and arrives at his land, which he cultivates with great passion and dedication.
A prodigy chef, awarded a Michelin star from a very young age and celebrating his 30th birthday this year, with a passion for the countryside and wine, which he produces in his vineyard as well as honey and fruit.
The film begins with Paolo's motorbike journey to San Sebastiano in the Val Nervia in the Pre-Alps, which divide Italy from France.
La camera by Luca Guadagnino follows discreetly and naturally Paolo Masieri showing viewers seventy minutes of his life. An immersion in nature, captured by his stills showing a philosophy that makes taste a top priority. As the chef explains in the following interview, trying to understand that landscape in the dishes that he then creates leads him to merge with the land and the forest, resulting in unique and intense flavours.
A creative cuisine that stems from his culture as a peasant chef based on the quality of raw materials. A docufilm imbued with love for the land and for his work where words are sprinkled, everything else is the sound of life, of hands creating nourishment from things.
A hymn to nature and food as its natural derivation. In the everyday gestures of the chef, he exudes an incredible passion for everything that nature offers in its many forms and which he is careful to seek out and cultivate.
A profound reflection translated into images by Luca Guadagnino on the importance of territory and origins, in a succession of stills, dancing to the musical notes of Mozart and Beethoven.
The film ends with a riot of dishes dancing to the notes of a waltz that catches the eye and awakens the palate. A whirlwind of elaborate flavours in a highly chromatic ensemble, full of simple but majestic-looking ingredients, in what appears to be a quest for perfection of form from the chef.
A signature cuisine that deserves three stars for technique, vision and raw material according to its customers, who Masieri with his prolific creativity continues to amaze and astound.