ULAM: Main Dish
Directed by Alexandra Cuerdo
7 p.m. Tuesday, November 6
Sie FilmCenter
The screening of ULAM: Main Dish isn't only a visual experience, as Denver Film Festival artistic director Brit Withey explains.
"A couple of years ago, we started a culinary cinema program," he says. "We've featured a simple, straightforward film about food and then tied it together with appropriate food in the film. Last year, we showed a documentary about ramen (read about Ramen Heads here), and afterward, we had a full-blown ramen dinner. It was great."
The 2018 spotlight offering in the series is ULAM: Main Dish, "which is about Filipino food and its rising popularity in places like New York City and San Francisco and Los Angeles," Withey goes on. "It's one of those films about food where, as soon as it's over, all you want to do is eat the food in the film."
Here's the trailer for ULAM: Main Dish.
ULAM: Main Dish - Official Trailer #2 (HD) from Alexandra Cuerdo on Vimeo.
Making this happen wasn't as easy as it might have seemed at first blush. Withey maintains that "the trend isn't really happening here as much as it is in some other places. But we found a Filipino guy in Aurora, Lesh, who runs a food truck called The Orange Crunch, and after we show the film, he's going to take over The Goods," a restaurant at 2550 East Colfax that's located in the same complex as the Sie FilmCenter. "And he's going to cook a Filipino meal for sixty people who come to the film."
A few weeks before the screening was scheduled, Withey reveals, "Lesh did a walk-through of The Goods to see the kitchen, and the executive chef and associate chef there were Filipino, too. They were just giddy about all the things they're going to cook. It was really exciting and fascinating how it all came together."
Withey doesn't know if the event will kick-start a Filipino food boom in Denver. But based on the delectable images captured in ULAM: Main Dish, he says, "I certainly hope more of it is on the horizon here. That would be awesome."
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