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Chef: A New Slang in Town - Poul Nissen Cannes Film Festival Interview
Young film director and co-founder of Topo Colectivo Poul Nissen was at hand at the Marché du Film to talk about their upcoming project, the mixed Danish-Spanish flavour, and other previous works.
Audio transcription
"Hi friends, I'm in Cannes for the 78th Festival du Film, but this is actually the Marché du Film, which is the industry side of things, it's more like your regular, you know, industry show, and I'm here joining Poul, who's telling me a little bit of both how it works, what you guys are doing, and also it's good because we're adding a little bit of Danish flavor to my coverage, it's of course Gamereactor, so it's always nice, so thank you so much for joining us, Poul."
"It's a pleasure.
What are you guys doing here?
So we are, first of all, making connections, it's important, no?
And mostly when developing a project such as a feature film, so we're basically doing that."
"I am a young director, but I always say I'm experienced.
So, yeah, we've been working in this project, in this script, for quite a long time now, around two to three years.
And my background comes from the short film area.
I also started up a production company, which we basically shoot commercials and music videos as well."
"But I always had the intrigue, you know, to shoot.
To try your hand at it.
Okay, so there's two strands there.
Let's talk about your current project first."
"It has a name, it has a concept.
I don't know if you're showing it to potential investors, or what can you tell me about the project itself?
Yes, so we are indeed showing it to potential investors and co-producers.
I met Nabil Ejey, which is the executive producer of the project."
"And so, first of all, with the script we have developed already all the aesthetics of the project.
The script, we are currently producing the teaser right now.
And yeah, there's some people interested actually.
So it's working out for you?
It is working out, yeah."
"We've already raised what is the development of the project.
So with that, we are trying to explore the maximum of it.
Try to get the most out of it.
And so this project is, I come from Denmark and Spain, no?
So there's both cultures that are into the project."
"So we plan to shoot between Denmark, a city called Aarhus.
Okay, Aarhus.
Which is a not so big city, but actually quite important in Denmark and Scandinavia.
And in Madrid is where I live right now."
"Okay, okay.
Can you tell us a little bit more about what it is about?
Or is it secret for now?
No, no, no, I can tell about it, yeah."
"So it's called Chef, a new slang in town.
And it's an absurd comedy.
But when you get into the project, you realize it's actually a portrait of society.
A bit of satire?
Yeah, very much satire."
"But we have as a main topic, we come with cultural appropriation.
And the culture of cancellation.
Okay.
Cancel culture.
It's something that we see very much nowadays, no?
You have to be very careful with what you say or what you do."
"You don't have to be right now.
You can say whatever you want.
We're on the record, but you can say whatever you want.
Yeah, yeah, yeah."
"But, you know, we've seen it a lot in social media.
Someone says something that is not quite seen very politically correct from the people.
You know, you get a lot of people...
Jumping on you."
"Jumping on you, yeah.
So this is about the slang of Chef.
We are very used to hear people saying, Bro, what's up, bro? How you doing, dude?
Yeah, yeah, yeah."
"Pal, da, da, da, da.
And so this is the movie about a guy who goes around calling Chef to basically everyone.
Yeah, so like in The Bear?
Yeah, yeah."
"This has a part in Denmark.
Yeah, exactly.
So everyone just calls Chef to everyone.
It's just the big boom in the world.
The problem is that professionals, cooks, chefs, they find this mad disrespectful."
"Okay.
So they say, no, no, no, no.
You've got to call me.
Yeah, this is my job.
This is my profession."
"I've been working for so many years, scaling up, you know, going up the rank, till I'm finally a...
Chef.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so..."
"Fucking Chef.
Yeah, fucking Chef.
I'm a Chef.
So how come these dudes are just saying Chef to basically anyone?
It's disrespectful for my profession."
"So they basically just go out to streets and protest against this, and they close down.
So we see how a word can, in a comic way, in a kind of a sense, with a humor sense, a comical way, that can affect big society.
The important thing about this project is that people, when they're watching the movie, they are kind of seeing, what the fuck am I watching?
Okay."
"But they can also kind of get slowly into the story, and kind of decide whether they are with the chefs or not with the chef.
Or somewhere in between.
Or somewhere in between, exactly."
"Okay.
All right, so talking about chefs, and we've mentioned The Bear, how would you say the Danish and the Spanish flavors combine here?
From your experience."
"Very well, actually.
We have very amazing cooks, actually, from both Spain and Denmark.
So we will also go into the cuisine, into the gastronomy.
Oh, really?
Yeah."
"We want to show how, you know, some culinary specialties from someone just...
That's very typical.
Go against chef.
That's a chef."
"Or not so chef, maybe.
So we want to show, you know, it's a universal film.
Okay.
It's a big universal film, like it's not just Danish and Spanish actors involved, but we do have Spanish and Danish actors."
"You're shooting in English, I guess?
We will shoot in English.
When you're shooting?
Exactly.
And we will shoot in Denmark and Spain because it's what I most know about, you know?
So I think a director must show with his or her eyes what they've lived and experienced."
"So for me, shooting in Denmark, you know, it's just amazing.
And the architecture and the houses with the colors and everything, it's pretty much like what I need for the film.
Okay, so final one."
"You mentioned your shorts.
For those who don't know you and might know you in the future, perhaps in Cannes in the competition with your feature films, but for those who don't know you yet, which are the three shards that you mentioned?
So if you go and look at it, you will probably most find Plantas, which was my latest short film."
"And then there was two more back in the days when we were starting.
We shot this No Pude, this one, and Bob.
And I'm mostly happy for Plantas because it's the one I shot outside where I could really get all my knowledge and go out and shoot an actual project that I thought had the maturity to kind of transcend and to work."
"So this Plantas, actually we kind of went to different festivals.
We had in the Chelsea Film Festival in New Jersey and Colombia, Argentina.
It went pretty well.
So, yeah, when that was done and finally it had its life, we then specialized in other areas as well, like commercials."
"So, you know, we all need to eat.
Of course.
So we started doing all these projects.
And it has gone pretty well for us.
But now is the moment to get back with the project that I've been writing for three years."
"All right.
And the name again for the feature film is?
Chef, a new slang in town.
Let's keep an eye on it.
So thank you so much for your time, Poul."
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