A feature film is in the works about the life of late celebrity chef Bernard Loiseau, who partly inspired the character of chef Auguste Gusteau in Ratatouille. The untitled film will be written and directed by Thomas Lilti (The Country Doctor, First Year, A Real Job, Hippocrate). Chi-Fou-Mi, a Mediawan banner, is producing the untitled feature with 31 Juin Films, in partnership with Loiseau’s family.
Loiseau was one of France’s most famous chefs in the 1980s and ’90s, credited for elevating French culture on the international stage and turning his Burgundy village of Saulieu into a world-renowned gastronomic destination. His restaurant, La Côte d’Or, received its third Michelin star in 1991. A pioneering businessman, Loiseau also became the first celebrity chef to have his restaurant listed the stock exchange. But despite all his achievements, Loiseau, who suffered from depression, died by suicide at age 52 in 2003.
Lilti said in a statement about the project, “Since the beginning of my career, I have sought to portray work and to tell the stories of men and women confronting their vocation. With Bernard Loiseau, that question becomes even more intimate and that is what moves me so deeply about his story. Exploring his life means speaking about excellence, work, doubt, legitimacy and solitude.”
He continued, “It means trying to understand genius — in all its visionary power, but also in its deeply destructive dimension. By immersing myself, almost frantically, in his life and work, I am discovering a man who was deeply loved and deeply loving, whose tragic end reveals fractures that perhaps only fiction can truly approach.”
via: Variety
