CHEFS
North America Premiere • TV Mini-Series • Drama • France, 2015
Blu-ray • Color • Season 1 - Episodes 1&2 (2x52’)
Directed by: Arnaud Malherbe
Written by: Arnaud Malherbe, Marion Festraëts with the collaboration of Yann Le Nivet, Claire Lemaréchal and Stéphanie Tchou-Cotta
Created by: Marion Festraëts, Arnaud Malherbe
Produced by: Xavier Matthieu
Cast: Clovis Cornillac (The Chef), Hugo Becker (Romain), Anne Charrier (Delphine), Nicolas Gob (Yann), Robin Renucci (Monsieur Édouard), Annie Cordy ( Léonis), Étienne Chicot (Walter), Joyce Bibring ( Charlène), Zinedine Soualem (Karim), Anthony Pho (Woo), Jean Bediebe (Souleimane), Laurent Menoret (JC) and Juliette (Angélique)
International Sales: CALT Distribution
Original Broadcast: France 2, February 11, 2015
This ambitious drama developed by Arnaud Malherbe and Marion Festraëts drops the gloss of reality-show cooking competitions to take a grittier look at the rivalries and suspense behind the closed doors of a professional kitchen. Clovis Cornillac – whose debut feature Blind Date will screen in a World Premiere at COLCOA 2015 – stars as a man so devoted to his kitchen that he is only known as The Chef. An intensely temperamental man under constant pressure, The Chef nevertheless reserves a spot each year on his staff for an ex-convict, in deference to his own youthful mistakes. When Romain, a 25 year-old former fraudster played by Gossip Girl regular Hugo Becker, steps into the kitchen as a dishwasher, he awakens to the world: to the art of cooking, to love, and to his struggle to belong. And he will soon become indispensible to The Chef in ways that no one would have suspected.
Episode 1: Romain joins the “kitchen brigade”, and is put to the test in this surprisingly regimented system. Episode 2: Following a fire he starts in order to sabotage his own restaurant, The Chef has to deal with a new manager sent in to oversee the finances.