Let Them Eat Cake

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Disambiguation Let them eat cake (disambiguation)

Let Them Eat Cake - a global view of the perils and pleasures of pastry
Directed by	Alexis Krasilovsky
Produced by	Alexis Krasilovsky Sanjoy Ghosh Hamidou Soumah
Written by	Alexis Krasilovsky
Starring	Alexis Krasilovsky
Narrated by	Bobbi Owens Trina Lahiri Shodo Harada Roshi
Music by	Ed Finney Jenny Eloise Rieu Michael Bogomolny Yasumi Miyzawa Ronobir Lahiri
Cinematography	Alexis Krasilovsky
Edited by	Katey Bright
Distributed by	Amazon Video Prime
Release date	October 17, 2013 (US – Pastriology) January 13, 2014 (Dhaka Int’l Film Festival) October 24, 2014 (US – Let Them Eat Cake)
Running time	81 min Director's Cut 54 min Educational / Instructional
Country	United States
Language	English French subtitles Spanish subtitles Italian subtitles Closed Captions

Search Let Them Eat Cake on Amazon.

Let Them Eat Cake (also called Pastriology) is a 2014 documentary film written and directed by filmmaker Alexis Krasilovsky for Rafael Film, LLC. The film examines the pleasures and perils of pastries, as well as the world hunger crisis. The film is narrated by former Executive Director of the Mini-Twelve Step House of South Central Los Angeles, Bobbi Owens; poet Trina Lahiri of Kolkata, India; and Zen Buddhist Abbot, Shodo Harada Roshi, of Sogenji Monastery, Japan.

The film received positive reviews and won several awards, including “Best Documentary Feature” at the Paris Independent Film Festival in 2015 and Special Jury Mention, “Best Editing” at the Sole Luna Festival, Italy, in 2014.

Content

Let Them Eat Cake takes a global view of the perils and pleasures of pastry, seducing the viewer with the lavish traditions of pastry- and cake-making that call us back to the roots of our childhood. The documentary feature runs the full range from the pleasures and dangers of overeating to the tragedies of world hunger. As the Zen Buddhist Abbot, Shodo Harada Roshi (filmed in Sogenji Monastery in Okayama, Japan) says, “Equal food distribution is fundamental for constructing a society in which there is true peace.”

Let Them Eat Cake opens a window into cultural history, from the “Day of the Dead” caballitos filmed in rural Mexico to the cherry blossom pastries filmed in a Chano-yu teahouse ceremony in Tokyo. Yet, as the Jicarilla Apache Elder who eats traditional fry bread on his reservation in the Western United States explains, “Wherever food is sold, there is nothing healthy for us." The film explores obesity through this Elder’s eyes, as well as through a little girl on a diet in Paris, and a diabetic in Los Angles, who explains the intense, fleeting pleasures of downing donuts. The visual journey also includes fat cells exploding in the pancreas.

Once suicidal and weighing almost 300 pounds, Dianna has found a way to overcome her food addiction. Bobbi Owens explains how she has managed to avoid the heart disease that killed her overweight sister. Let Them Eat Cake explores both extremes: a French boy, age 8-1/2, describing all the flavors and fillings of his perfect birthday cake, and the Turkana woman in a refugee camp in Kenya, who is angry because all of her animals died from the drought, and who has to rely on relief food to survive.

Let Them Eat Cake investigates the economics behind the pastries, interviewing Ray Squitieri, U.S. economist under the George W. Bush and Clinton administrations, who discusses world wealth distribution while dissecting a pie. Odilon Thea, a journalist and economist in Guinea, West Africa, discusses the economics of cocoa plantations in his country. The film follows in cinema verité fashion Papa Né’s family in Nzérékoré as all the children gather cocoa pods in the jungle. Similarly, workers are shown gathering sugar can in Andhra Pradesh, India, where over 200,000 farmers have committed suicide since 1997, when corporate seed control started. Our interviews with farmers of the region explain how “it’s like we’re working for the sugar factory, not for ourselves,” without enough income to support their families.

Let Them Eat Cake’s stories of suffering include the corn farmers in Cuzco-Urubamba, Peru, whose fields are so flooded that they won’t be able to send their children to school, but it also includes people who offer solutions. Dr. Jaime Delgado Zegarra, President of ASPEC—the Peruvian Consumers’ Association, asks for “the right to information, the right to safety, the right to be compensated in cases of injuries, and finally, the right to be treated fairly and justly in transactions with suppliers.” He also discuses important problems of fructose corn syrup.

Interviews

· Anjayya (Andhra Pradesh, India)

· Audrey Baharier, l’Atelier des gateaux (Paris, France)

· Cellou Barry, Patisserie Centre de Conakry (Conakry, Guinea)

· Lagache Benoit, Meert Patisserie (Lille, France)

· Diane & Antoine Carasso (Paris, France)

· Isabelle Cohen (Paris, France)

· Philippe Conticini, Patisserie des reves (Paris, France)

· Dianna M. Cox (Los Angeles, United States)

· Rogene Garambullo (Dulce, New Mexico, USA)

· J.P. Pedda Rama Goud (Andhra Pradesh, India)

· Coskun Kocak, Kocak Baklava Factory (Gaziantep, Turkey)

· Maria Del Carmen Lara (Pazcuaro, Mexico)

· Carl Marletti (Paris, France)

· Yasumi Miyazawa (Tokyo, Japan)

· Mieka Nakawa, Nankawa Tea House (Tokyo, Japan])

· Bobbi Owens (Los Angeles, United States)

· Susana Palomino (Cuzco-Uchu, Peru)

· Lydia Pesata (Dulce, New Mexico, United States)

· Ray Squitieri (Washington, DC, United States)

· Sufia (Dhaka, Bangladesh)

· Odilon Thea (Conakry, Guinea)

· Landron Thierry, Meert Patisserie (Lille, France)

· Lucha Tobar (Lima, Peru)

· Chikahisa Yamashita, Keiko Yamashita and Oshikazu Yamashita, Iseya Bakery (Tokyo, Japan)

· Dr. Jaime Delgado Zegarra (Lima, Peru)

Production

Working transculturally and transnationally with filmmakers in twelve countries, like Ajit Nag and Co-Producer Sanjoy Ghosh (India), Shabnam Ferdousi and Bibesh Roy (Bangladesh), Rosa Carrillo (Mexico), Miguel Angel, Bocanegra Chavez and Christian Lanazca (Peru), Emel Celebi (Turkey), Moussa Diakite (Guinea), Anouchka Walewyk (France), Alexis Krasilovsky (United States) and Co-Producer Hamidou Soumah (Guinea/France/United States) and others, Let Them Eat Cake takes a multi-dimensional view of pastry’s ingredients—including sugar, wheat, cocoa and corn—and shows how they are related to themes of wage slavery, world hunger and obesity.

Production began in 2008 in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Camera used in the making of the film include a Canon Vixia HD30 for filming in the baklava factories and cafes of Gaziantep, Turkey; the Chano-yu ceremony in Japan, and pastry shops in London, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Paris and Lille. Other cameras, mostly HD, were used in India, Guinea, Mexico, Kenya, Somalia, etc. The pie-throwing shot was filmed in Los Angeles, California by Unit DP Alicia Robbins using a FS700 at 250 fps.

Original music included “A Spoonful of Sugar” by Ed Finney, recorded by Doug Lacy and Reseda Mickey (United States); Patisserie” by Jenny Eloise Rieu and Michael Bogomolny, produced by Minoti Vaishnav (Paris/Los Angeles); and shamizen music, “Chano-yu at a Temple” and “Sweet Dream” (“Amaki Yume Misi”) composed and performed by Yasumi Miyzawa; and sitar music performed by Ronobir Lahiri.

The film premiered under the title Pastriology at the Santa Fe Indepenent Film Festival, October 17, 2013, following a Sneak Preview at the Alan Armer Auditorium California State University, Northridge; an excerpt had screened as a videopoem at Beyond Baroque’s “Women Write Resistance” event, Venice, California, September 7, 2013. Under the title Let Them Eat Cake, the film screened at the Dhaka International Film Festival (Bangladesh) on January 13, 2014; the Ethnografilm Festival (Paris, France) on April 19, 2014; the Sole Luna Festival in Palermo, Italy on June 26, 2015 and in Treviso, Italy in September 2014, where it won Special Jury Mention, ”Best Editing”; the IDSFFK (International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala, India) on July 20, 2014; the High Falls Film Festival (Rochester, New York) in October 2014; the Festival de Cine de Todos Santos (Baja California Sur, Mexico), March 13, 2015; the Filmmor International Women’s Film Festival (Istanbul, Turkey) March 18-21, 2015, the Documentary Film Festival (Assam, India) on April 28, 215; the Cayda Cira Film Festival (Elazig, Turkey) on Mary 15, 2015; the Female Eye Film Festival (Toronto, Canada) on June 21, 2015; La Femme International Film Festival (Beverly Hills, California) on October 17, 2015; Paris Independent Film Festival (Paris, France), on November 29, 2015, where it won the “Best Documentary Feature” award; and the Pasadena International Film Festival (Pasadena, Caifornia) on March 5, 2016.

Museum screenings have included the International Day of Museums at the Museum of Ethnography (Geneva, Switzerland) on May 17, 2015; and the Mayme Clayton Library and Museum (Culver City, California) on September 24, 2017.

Response

Responses to the Sneak Preview included:

“Totally engaging.” – Ben Lewin, Writer/Director, The Sessions

“This film shows the relationship between calories, politics and power. If you love food, you have to watch it.” – Bronwyn Mauldin, Author, The Streetwise Cycle

Audience feedback at the Ethnografilm Festival (Paris, France) included:

“The film was fabulous in its juxtaposition of the sugar excesses of some countries and the abject malnourishment and suffering of those in other countries…Without ever being domineering, the film effectively communicates its message that the global system has serious and devastating lacks. I particularly liked the ‘pie chart’ statistics….Also, the discussion of harmony from the Japanese monk as a great element interweaving the various strands of the film.”- Tami Blumenfield, James B. Duke Assistant Professor of Asian Studies, Furman University.

Audience feedback at a special screening for the Writers Guild of America/West (Hollywood, California), included:

“Extraordinarily thought-provoking.” – Randolph Pitts, CEO, Lumiere Films, Inc.

Audience feedback at the High Falls Film Festival (Rochester, New York) included:

“Extraordinary scope and beautifully edited – a heartbreaking examination of excss as art and as demon.” – Judy White, Screenwriter/Co-Producer, Lies I Told My Little Sister

Critical Reception

Critic Maria Elena de las Carreras wrote: “I loved your documentary, both in form and content. It is a wonderful leisure journey through very interesting and different cuisines. The charm of your film lies in its elegance and simplicity, and its embrace fot he world, in its beautiful diversity. By following the steps of Flaherty and his presenting of worlds outside of our ordinary experience, Let Them Eat Cake makes us ‘see’, and ‘taste’, what connects all these cultures worldwide.”

Jack Garner wrote in “My High Falls Film Festival picks”: “Let Them Eat Cake. A film that uses pastry making as a double-edged sword (to mix a metaphor along with the cake batter), the documentary explores the various approaches to rich desserts around the world, and then demonstrates how they symbolize class differences and exemplify how the rich get richer and the poor don’t. As the film points out, many of the farmers and laborers who grow and gather the raw products of pastry – the sugar, the cocoa, etc. – couldn’t afford to buy any of he end products, even if they were available to them…”

Awards

Let Them Eat Cake:

· “Best Documentary Feature,” Paris Independent Film Festival, December 2015.

· Special Jury Award, “Best Editing,” Sole Luna Festival (“Un ponte tra le culture"), October 2014.

Pastriology:

· Honorable Mention in the Feature Non-Fiction Category of the Juried Screening Competition of the University Film and Video Association, 2013

· Gold Award for Sound Mixing, Prestige Film Award Competition, 2013

· Award of Merit for Feature Documentary, Accolade Global Film Competition, 2013

· Award of Merit for Editing, Accolade Global Film Competition, 2013

· Award of Merit for Editing, IndieFest Competition, 2013

External links

Disambiguation Let them eat cake (disambiguation) http://LetThemEatCakeFilm.com
http://Pastriology.com
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_them_eat_cake_(disambiguation)
https://www.amazon.com/Let-Them-Cake-Philippe-Conticini/dp/B075FVLV69/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1508134691&sr=8-10&keywords=Let+them+eat+cake&tag=everybodywikien-20
https://indiescenemag.wordpress.com/2015/01/04/interview-with-let-them-eat-cake-filmmaker-alexis-krasilovsky/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcv3HpIl3eO6bpLwK05VPpQ
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3241852/
http://www.documentary.org/film/let-them-eat-cake

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