Welcome to my 2025 project wherein my partner and I picked 25 movies from 25 different countries and I cooked 25 meals of food from their respective countries. Today’s entry is the criteria for the project and masterlist so you can follow along:
Criteria
The point of this whole project to watch movies from countries we don’t usually watch movies from but not just the movies made for international audiences and to eat food that isn’t just the national dish of a country. While you can’t get a full picture of a country from just one movie, for lack of a better way of putting it, you really can’t understand a country from the movies that it wants to produce for an international or American audience. We tried to avoid movies that occurred outside of the country, movies written about leaving the country, and movies that were well-known to American audiences. We mostly picked movies based on our taste though which is more eccentric than average. Mostly we found the movies through Letterboxd tags and eventually had to settle for some 2nd and 3rd picks due to a lack of availability on some movies. There is no other rhyme or reason to the movies which are selected.
For the food I attempted to find vegetarian dishes, tried to steer away from food that is limited to a holiday or national dishes which tended to be complicated and expensive. We tried to pair wines or drinks from that country but like ingredients, we were fairly limited to what is available in Estonia so if the selection seem less bombastic than a “cook around the world” project, that is why. We also ordered take out if there was a local option for it because I am a good cook but cooking 100s of dishes I’ve never had before with ingredients that are expensive and I don’t normally use was very nerve wracking. Hopefully I didn’t bungle the food I made too much.
Masterlist
- FRANCE
- Astérix & Obélix : Mission Cléopâtre [Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra] (dir. Alain Chabat, 2002)
- THAILAND
- มนต์รักทรานซิสเตอร์ [Transistor Love Story] (dir. Pen-Ek Ratanaruang, 2001)
- EGYPT
- ڤوي! ڤوي! ڤوي! [Voy! Voy! Voy!] (dir. Omar Hilal, 2023)
- AUSTRALIA
- Proof (dir. Jocelyn Moorhouse, 1991)
- NORWAY
- Salmer fra kjøkkenet [Kitchen Stories] (dir. Bent Hamer, 2003)
- ITALY
- Un borghese piccolo piccolo [An Average Little Man] (dir. Mario Monicelli, 1977)
- TUNSIA
- تحت الشجرة [Under the Fig Trees] (dir. Erige Sehiri, 2021)
- AUSTRIA
- Die Gstettensaga: The Rise of Echsenfriedl (dir. Johannes Grenzfurthner, 2014)
- KENYA
- Rafiki (dir. Wanuri Kahiu, 2018)
- GEORGIA
- წმინდა ელექტროენერგია [Holy Electricity] (dir. Tato Kotetishvili, 2024)
- BOLVIA
- ¿Quién mató a la llamita blanca? [Who Killed the White Llama?] (dir. Rodrigo Bellott, 2007)
- SENEGAL
- Hyènes [Hyenas] (dir. Djibril Diop Mambéty, 1992)
- BRAZIL
- Estômago [Stomach] (dir. Marcos Jorge, 2007)
- MOROCCO
- سيد المجهول [The Unknown Saint] (dir. Alaa Eddine Aljem, 2018)
- LATVIA
- Kriminālās ekselences fonds [The Foundation of Criminal Excellence] (dir. Oskars Rupenheits, 2018)
- NIGERIA
- The Lost Okoroshi (dir. Abba Makama, 2019)
- PERU
- Raíz [Root] (dir. Franco García Becerra, 2024)
- LITHUANIA
- Nova Lituania [New Lithuania] (dir. Karolis Kaupinis, 2019)
- TURKEY
- Ölümlü Dünya [Mortal World] (dir. Ali Atay, 2018)
- ARMENIA
- Vodka Lemon (dir. Hiner Saleem, 2003)
- SWEDEN
- Slim Susie (dir. Ulf Malmros, 2003)
- SOUTH KOREA
- 바르게 살자 [Going by the Book] (dir. Ra Hee-chan, 2007)
- SERBIA
- Crna mačka, beli mačor[Black Cat, White Cat] (dir. Emir Kusturica)
- UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
- Strange Days (dir. Kathryn Bigelow, 1995)
I’ll be posting these entries every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday until they’re all finished. This will be updated when they’re posted!