Foodie films to savour

This 1988 Academy Award-winner for Best Foreign Language Film was a big art house hit and spawned a whole international subgenre — the 'foodie' film.

You don’t have to head downtown for the Atlantic Film Festival — some films are showing right here at Dalhousie. And the best thing? Admission is free.

The only caveat is that you might want to bring a snack. All the foodie films on the schedule feature lots of good eats. Screenings take place at the Dalhousie Art Gallery at 5 p.m.

“What do people do at 5 p.m.? They eat. Luckily, there is a very nice cinematic body of work about eating,” says Ron Foley Macdonald, senior programmer at the Atlantic Film Festival. “Plus eating and the cinema are so closely aligned — popcorn, anyone? — and that adds another flavor to the self-conscious process of consuming film and consuming food.”

Mr. Macdonald, also film curator at the Dalhousie Art Gallery, has assembled a line-up of films from around the globe. He added Peter Greenaway’s The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover to the pot when it was confirmed the director will attend the festival. His most recent feature, Nightwatching, about Rembrandt’s painting Nightwatch, will be screened Sunday, Sept. 16 at the Oxford Theatre.

And here's the line-up:

	Babette’s Feast (Denmark/France, 1987): An Academy Award-winner for best foreign film, Babette’s Feast tells the story of two spinster sisters who prepare a decadent banquet for the village elders. Friday, Sept. 14.
	Eat Drink Man Woman (Taiwan, 1994): Director Ang Lee tells the story of a widower and venerable chef who gathers his three daughters together for Sunday dinner. Saturday, Sept. 15.
	My Dinner with Andre (USA, 1981): A stream-of-consciousness dialogue between a pair of New York intellectuals as they get together for dinner in a posh restaurant. Sunday, Sept. 16.
	Like Water for Chocolate (Mexico, 1993): A daughter forbidden to marry allows her passions to surface through her cooking. Monday, Sept. 17.
	The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (Spain/France/Italy, 1972): A surreal political comedy about wealthy friends who are prevented from eating their elaborate dinner by a series of increasingly strange events. Tuesday, Sept. 18.
	Tampopo (Japan, 1986): A satirical view of the relationship between food and sex. Wednesday, Sept. 19.
	The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (France/Netherlands, 1989): A repressed wife Georgina (Helen Mirren) becomes magnetically attracted to a solitary diner and the two begin a secret affair under the nose of her dangerous husband. Thursday, Sept. 20.
	Big Night (USA, 1996): Two immigrant brothers hope to save their struggling restaurant by attracting a famous entertainer to a sumptuous feast. Friday, Sept. 21.

Dalhousie Art Gallery’s regular film series kicks off later in the month with a Jim Jarmusch retrospective. The first film in the series is Permanent Vacation (1980), Jarmusch’s debut “that no one has ever seen,” says Mr. Macdonald. It screens on Wednesday, Sept. 26 at 8 p.m.

The Shock of the New, art critic and author Robert Hughes’s series about the rise of Modernism, is the gallery’s second film series. Screenings are set for Thursdays at 12:30 p.m., with films kept to an hour in length. The first in the series, The Mechanical Paradise, charts the beginning of modernity in European culture. It shows Thursday, Sept. 27 at 12:30 p.m.