‘Chocolate Road’ movie set to offer key insights into industry production methods
An insightful new international documentary, Chocolate Road, gains its release this month, offering an insider view into the confectionery business, seen through the eyes of several experienced industry professionals, reports Neill Barston.
The film from Tanya Chuturkova’ is released through digital distributor Syndicado, and available on platforms including Apple TV, Google TV and inDemand, exploring the sector through renowned chocolatiers – Maribel Lieberman, Susumu Koyama and Mikkel Friis-Holm.
It proposes to take viewers through the process of craft chocolate-making, starting from the plantations, through the different stages of preparation of the beans and all the way to the final chocolate pieces. On their journey, each of them finds how important it is to know the roots of their prime material – the cacao bean, and the social impact of the people involved in the chocolate production chain.
“Chocolate Road came to me out of the blue with an unexpected call from Japanese producer Takayuki Yasuda who had come across some of my past works and wanted to tell me about his idea,” said director Tanya Chuturkova. “Our first trip to Japan with chocolatier Susumu Koyama forever changed the way I see and consume chocolate.
“It gave me a perspective about how much work goes into something I eat in only a few seconds. We had to show the full process from bean to bar, and we especially had to make sure the film shows the hard work of the farmers, because without their perseverance the road of chocolate would not exist.”
As the team behind the feature film (which gains its release on November 16) explains, the trio of experts will each offer their distinctive views, including Japanese based Susumu Koyama. He opened Patissier Koyama in Sanda, Hyogo Prefecture in 2003. He continues to work as a professional creator of new tastes, which revolve around the idea of “flavours for everyone, with a touch of class.”
Meanwhile, Maribel Lieberman is the founder of MarieBelle New York, and to this day its most inspired doyenne. From her first chocolate shop in Soho, Maribel’s passion for discovering and sharing new flavours has seen her continually reinvent how we enjoy chocolate. She lives in Soho in New York City with her husband, artist Jacques Lieberman and their daughter.
For his part, Friis-Holm is a trained chef by profession and an explorer by vocation. His trajectory in cooking has strongly influenced his trajectory with chocolate. The immersion and discovery of this new profile of cacao served as motivation for Mikkel to fulfill a long time interest. And in 2008, Friis-Holm Chokolade was born. The company is based in Lejre, Denmark. For more information about the film, visit https://www.facebook.com/chocolateroadfilm
