Giulio Bertelli, Filmmaker

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1:34Last September at the Venice Film Festival a friend took me mid-afternoon to see Agon, a radical and powerful movie Afterwards, I immediately changed my schedule to attend a dinner for the director of the film, Giulio Bertelli We sat together to talk just for a few minutes about his work, and an hour and a half later we were still talking about food and film, food and architecture, food and sailing, and growing up in a family of creatives. An Italian on Ruthie's Table 4 is always a joy. Our links are so close before we even start. The River Cafe is inspired by Tuscany, where Richard, my husband, was born.

2:16I'm so happy to have Giulio here with me today to carry on in London, what began in Venice. Thank you very much. What was it like to be in the Venice Film Festival for you last year with your film? I think, of course, it was Strong Emotion. It was my first film. Yeah. And to do that in Venice, which is, you know, for me, it's my own country at the same time, such an important festival. Yes, it was special. It felt very good. And I think, you know, it was a hard journey as it often is, you know, for first films or in general to make any film and to be there presented and get the warm of the reception of the film was fantastic because it's quite a radical film it's a radical film yeah yeah but to use the words radical it's so beautifully shot so the design the slowness of it it was a brave film i think a really brave film tell tell the audience about the movie and what you wanted to do with that move?

3:11I think, in a way, to start, of course, I come personally from a background as a professional athlete, and the film is about three athletes, three young athletes in a fictional Olympic game. So there was, I think, multiple desire. There was sort of a part of me that wanted to really look at what are the Olympics, what is a sport, and then there was a part of me that just really wanted to make a film on how it feels to be an athlete. And so the film is the story of three young girls that tries to go through this journey of trying to win a medal at the Olympics ultimately. And unfortunately they can't.

3:56And so it's really about how it feels not to be able to do what you want to do. And it originally started as an animation. Many years ago. I remember that. I remember that you tell me. So when I started writing it with a few friends, it started as an animation and it was originally, the idea was what if it's an animation about Joan of Arc, a modern version of Joan of Arc who is a fencer and goes at the Olympics, kills someone and then a political trial and starts on erection and this sort of looking at the Olympics as this sort of geopolitical entity where every country face each other. through the proxy of sport, but in a way it's like kind of, you know, a warfare through sport between different nations.

4:46And then it developed into live action films and with multiple storylines and the film that it is now, that I presented. We were talking about the Olympics, and we were talking about sport in the sense that both sport and art and something like the Biennale have, you know, the... they have always the cloud of boycott, you know. And so this year the jury resigned because of Russia and Israel. And that, you know, should you have a participation of two countries which are waging wars. And the question, I think it is a question for having made a film about sport and politics, is whether someone, I was asked, whether I believe that they should be boycotted.

5:35And personally, I think it's better to have them there and then for everyone to make their mind up if they want to pick it or protest or not watch. But when you think of artists and athletes who work so hard to compete, to work, to be in the Olympics or the Biennale, then to be told they can't because of what their government is doing is quite punishing, I think. Absolutely. I think you really sort of hit the nail in the head as you say here because the movie is exactly about this it is Olympics about you know 130 years old and They starting you know for officers that they were you know in different army of different nation competing It was military was it no way because the very first The sport, I imagine, is pistol shooting.

6:28Pistol shooting, rifle shooting. These are some of the very, very early sports. Or fencing, a sort of a practice that officers would still do. So those are where the type of profile of athletes that originally started to compete. And I think after the Second World War, it really became this kind of UN peaceful event for every country to be together. But realistically, the value of politics, the soft power of each country on wanting to... the US wanting to win more medal than Russia or than China. That is a very strong value. And you still see this today of maybe Iranian athlete not shaking hands or not wanting to go on the tatami against Israeli athlete.

7:09And therefore, as you say, training all life, but ultimately not competing. Or, you know, there's really countless examples. And I think this is in a way very similar to the Viennale and to art. Yeah. and is this sense of excellence and how much is you as a person and how much then is sort of the system that you inhabit that drives your decision or what you can cannot do and and in a way what is interesting is that even in the very sort of in the Greek Olympic system or the Agon which were kind of the names of prior to the Olympics this competition in ancient Greek they included the the dramaturgy part, the theater, the arts.

7:56So it was much more, the boundaries between all of this, in a way, competition were very different. Yeah. It was much more opaque. Were you there for the Olympics in Milan? They were incredibly beautifully done, I thought. No, I think it's about the architecture and the system, how do you depict sport and images. You know, ultimately most of these minor Olympic sports because they are minor in terms of audience, they exist for the video or content that is generated of them. It's not that you're gonna go tomorrow in London and have 80 ,000 people watching the final of the English championship of fencing.

8:43So I think there is this relationship between media and the idea of performance that is similar to also in a way a actor and a cinema performer so all of these overlaps and I think you know it's has been a hard journey yeah the movie done and and now I look at it and I'm proud of it and I think is ultimately is really about even though it feels at times it's quite complex that also some of the topics but at the end is really about the feeling of how or the different ways or how it hits you when you cannot do what you want to do. And I think this is a feeling that you know it's shared among the unfortunately almost everyone you know sometimes you can succeed and you manage to open your restaurant or do a recipe and sometimes you cannot and you can win a medal or go home with nothing and That fine line of still thriving for excellence.

9:46Yeah. I keep on trying and trying and trying. In America, and I'm sure it's in Italy, but not so much, when you graduate from university, there's a speaker who speaks. And everybody talks about the speech by Roger Federer because in that we see him as a winner. We see him as somebody who is a champion. We see him as somebody who won all those Wimbledons. And he said to the students, do you know how many games I've lost in my life? If I could tell you all the games of tennis that I lost, then you would understand the few that I've won. I've won the ones that are important to win. But so much of life and about working towards a goal is to say, you know, it's okay to fail and it's okay to lose and it's okay to succeed.

10:32It's okay. All that is part of the journey that we're taking. Do you agree? This is what I like about sport, because the sense of competition is very clear. You are there to try to win, but at the same time, if you don't, it's about, you know, sitting and understanding how to do better and try again. What is the next movie? It's really going to be an adventure. Yeah. And in a very hard environment, which will be a strong challenge to actually make the film. and so I'm writing and also thinking how we can do it How do you eat when you're writing? Do you cook for your do you stop and make something?

11:14Do you go out for a walk? Do you have a schedule when you write? Or do you just I kind of keep on collecting ideas while traveling, while doing other things taking some time at night and then And when I feel I'm like, I'm kind of fed up, I just close myself for a few days and I sort of vomit a first draft. And then I continue to revision. I need some time to let the idea to sink and then I go back at it. And this is very important. I do the other things in my life also because they inform my writing. I could not have the idea I have if I were only doing that. I know others can. I would not be able.

12:06I need to have something else to do while I want an idea to sing for a while so that I can stress it and see, is it really standing even the time of my own imagination? Or I go back at it after three weeks and I think, but this is a bit, you know, it's not that good. But when I write, I drink a lot of tea or not much coffee, a lot of tea, and I just... Is it a solitary life? Do you find that you're by yourself working on this or do you have colleagues that you work with at this stage? No, it's quite solitary. So, yeah, no, I'm writing at the moment and trying to, you know, put the thing together.

12:53and I'm very excited. That's exciting. I can see it in your face. I can see it in your eyes that you have a plan. Because it's going to be difficult to wait and I love challenges. I don't like to make my life easier. No, why would we?

13:22Vigli Griliability for any business. That's genius. One of the things that we also start with is to choose a recipe for you to read. You chose, I was interested, you chose polenta. Yes. I'm so happy you did that. Maybe it's because of my... Yeah, let's talk about why. Where I'm from. Yeah, what is. So this is from our first, very first cookbook. It's polenta, which is very close. I mean, I would need to be like, probably we would speak for three hours, but I think it's very relevant. Go ahead, you can speak to us about polenta. You probably don't even need to look at the recipe. No, I don't. But I think, you know, polenta, this is a serve sauce 6-8 and put the polenta flour in the jug with a ladle.

14:06We used to say that when you pour the polenta, you should be able to see every grain of polenta going into the water. And whiskey and slowly. And I think usually the mistake is not to cook it enough. Okay. And then I think it's interesting because I'm from Milano and there is all of the region of Lombardia and the Alps. And every few little towns is done slightly different. Sometimes it's added buckwheat flour, different type of cheeses, garlic. For instance, one of the reasons why I picked this is my grandmother. Grandmother. Yes, which comes from a very small town in Molina in the lake of Como, on the mountains of Topoletico Como.

14:50And we used to get what we called polenta vuncha. Polenta vuncha? I've never heard. What is that? It means dirty. Ah, vuncha. Does that mean dirty? Yeah, it was basically a very, very cheesy buckwheat and corn polenta. And in the place, I remember we were not doing it at home. We would collect it from a sort of a very, very small, very, very tiny restaurant down the road in this little town. And they used to put garlic in it as well. In the water or after? No, before that would get completely smashed. in the... So before adding the water and the polenta, they would do oil and garlic at the bottom of the polenta pot.

15:37Completely... I've never heard of that. I would say it's not really a recipe or something that is traditional. Don't close it, you have to read it. Okay, start. Put the polenta flour in a jug with the lettuce so that it can be poured in a steady stream. Bring the water to a boil in a large saucepan and add one teaspoon of salt. lower the heat to simmer and slowly add the polenta flour. Steering with a whisk until completely blended. It will now start to bubble volcanically, reduce the heat to as low as possible and cook the polenta. Steering from time to time with a wooden spoon, prevent a skin forming on the top for about 40-45 minutes.

16:17The polenta is cooked when it falls away from the side of the pan it has been very dense and thick stirring the butter and parmesan and seasoned generally with salt and pepper I don't use parmesan I would use other type of cheeses what would you use? bito now there's a cheese called storico ribelle but any sort of hard fat cheese it depends on the part of and what do you eat with it? when you have polenta Do you have meat with it? Do you have tomato sauce? Do you have meat? If I do the polenta with cheese and buckwheat flour, I usually eat it as a main by itself. And I like it, which is next to it, polenta la grilla.

17:06I like it when then it's grilled as well. Yeah, you like it grilled, yeah. Particularly the cheesy one when it's grilled, I really like it, yes. It's a very comforting food, isn't it? Yes. And you never would have it in the summer, So you'd always have it in the winter, in the mountains. And your grandmother came from the mountains? She had this house in this very, very, very small town on top of Como. And we used to gather with all the cousins and family. And it's something that it never leaves you, the taste. So for me, even when I cook or when I go back at a recipe, you're really just looking for memory.

17:47to match what your expectation. I think there is two parts of me. There's one who wants to do what I desire. You know, maybe, you know, you want to do something else. To deviate from the rest of it. To deviate, exactly. But I think it's also sometimes I just want to match a memory. Yeah. And particularly for certain comforting food or the smell. The smell is important, don't you think? Yeah, very important. I think the smell. Yeah. When I had a very sad day many years ago when my son died, I remember just wanting to smell tomatoes being cooked. I needed that smell of something. Do you have, you know, the smells bring you back as well.

18:26Absolutely. Don't you think? No, absolutely. And I think, you know, when we spoke about this, when I have this, strangely enough, this freeze-dried food company. Yes, we're going to get onto that, yeah. But anyway, but what is one of the most intriguing thing about that is that when you when you cook you aromatize I don't know if it's a correct English the room slowly yes Julie yeah but when for instance you rehydrate a meal you kind of have the odor and the aroma coming all together yeah and I think that is a very intriguing kind of process of also going back to the relationship with smell and memory.

19:13It's like all of a sudden walking into a room where they've been cooking for two hours. But you kind of control that process and I think it's very fascinating. What are the smells that you remember growing up? Well, can you remember the kitchen in your house when you were growing up? Yes, super well. Okay, tell me about the kitchen in your house. Stainless steel. Where was this? Was this in Milan? Milano, yes. In an apartment or a house? Yeah, in an apartment. I remember it was a long corridor, just a corridor with green cabinets, and there was a stainless steel, they're still there actually, the stainless steel top.

19:47So who did the cooking? My mom, my dad, both. Everybody cooked, yeah. A lot of it. Very passionate, I think, particularly my father. Was he also from that same region? He's from Tuscany. Oh, so he's Tuscan. So was there foods that he brought with him? Yes, a lot. And I think there was a lot of that going on and just being, you know, not fanatical, but really maybe working for weeks and weeks on a recipe, just trying to get it better. So I remember this period of maybe, you know, having to eat the same dish for like three weeks, three times a week just to improve something or to make sure it was as we wanted.

20:29But yes, it was... Would you have dinner in the evening all together? Yeah. Yeah, you really grew up then with the feeling that food was very important to you. Do you think that's very Italian? I think so. Probably there is a value. I don't want to have any sort of, I'm really not a kind of nostalgia or romantic person who relates to, you know, related to Italy. But maybe, yes, among many other countries. Yeah, I think that, yeah. Maybe some more than others have a strong relationship. Yeah, yeah. The real culture of food is a culture that goes way back to understanding what a loaf of bread is, how you respect getting a fish on the bone and cooking it whole, and explaining to, you know, in a way that it's the regionality.

21:20I don't even say it's, you know, city to city or town to town. It's really family to family, the way you cook a food, you know. How did your grandmother cook it? How do you cook it? No, absolutely. But I also think that sometimes it's not really about the quality or to make the best of it. But going back to the memories, you want a certain taste profile, even though you are aware that it's not what potentially in the academia of cooking is not the best. So I think this relationship is very important and it goes back to culture. And I think also you said something that I absolutely agree, which is the regionality, which is not the word traditional, which I'm kind of appalled.

22:07I'm really like against. Also because it has no meaning. It's like it's when. Which tradition. Which, when, up to when, how further back you go. Like being philological in the history of cooking is completely impossible. It's irrelevant. And also tradition. I had a friend of mine, and they were here from the United States, from New York. And we had a lunch one Sunday, you know, and we had lunch. We said, let's meet next Sunday. So we met next Sunday. And then at that Sunday lunch, we said, let's meet next Sunday. And their little son said, is this the meaning of tradition? You know, we had three Sundays in a row, and if we have another one, is that what tradition is?

22:49We said, yeah, you can create your own traditions. You say, I'll see you every Sunday. That's a tradition. Or, you know, the way we are at the table or the food we cook. It doesn't have to be, you can create a tradition in one minute, you know. This is our tradition. Also, they've always done it. It's just, you know, it's like some, I personally am sometimes a bit embarrassed, particularly with Italians or maybe other countries are the same, of like wanting to stick to a certain way of doing certain things because it's, you don't really know what you're defending. Also because if you dig, I'm a passionate historian.

23:29If you dig into things, you get surprised. You get really surprised. I think everything I do is always has a relationship between, whether it was the film or the film I'm writing now, is always about a kind of a current status of themes that I try to connect that I'm interested about and try to trace them back and work my you know work backwards in history and then I think I'm not interested in the idea of just being observational so it's always kind of okay giving a proposal in a way as I did with the film or, you know, speculating on us slightly, you know, the future ahead or giving a proposal on an idea or a point of view and not being, not just depicting reality.

24:28As a restaurant genius, I know the experience starts long before the food hits the table. Genius by Global Payments makes it easy. Digital menus and price updates in real time. No reprints, no surprises. The kitchen and floor stayed perfectly in sync, so every dish arrives exactly as it should. From game day crowds to memorable meals, big league reliability for any business. That's genius. The interesting thing that we referred to just now, but as your freeze-dried food, which we talked about when we were in Venice, and to me it's just a very, very fascinating idea. Someone who takes the ingredient, as you say, in the River Cafe, the only thing we freeze is water.

25:18Tell me about how this all started. I think it has multiple origin story in a way. I spent a lot of time sailing offshore. I was a professional athlete. In a way, I still, at time, do. I still sail professionally, even though it's not anymore the core of my profession. So, and when you sail offshore, so kind of transatlantic type of voyages on this very high performance boat, it's like being in a tent in a K2 base camp, even though I don't do any alpinism but kind of that sensitivity so you are in a very small enclosed environment where you can only bring just light foods and so i spent a lot of time eating freeze dried which to be honest they were all quite poor in quality and so many years ago actually i was maybe 25 i thought what if one day you know i do a company where i can use the same approach to freeze drying in this pouch for like outdoors or sport at the moment but do it with very good food that has a meaning.

26:39Freeze drying is the technology that's used to make vaccine and medicine. It's an incredible technology it's just that it's been used maybe not at its best capacity. How do you make freeze dried food? What is the technology? The technology is that basically what you do is you take a food, you freeze it You plus chill it for someone who would be more in the know-how like yourself. So you lower it to minus 40 very quickly. And then in a vacuum, through a process of what is called sublimation, the water is taken out. So to put it in simple terms, you are removing the humidity, the moisture of a food, which is what makes it go bad.

27:23but without using time like hair drying it for months and without using heat which can ruin the food you're doing it with cold and this has been invented almost 100 years ago but only in the after the second world war it really started to be used for space food for outdoor and what are some of the dishes I can have if I were to get your there's a lentil and pasta soup there's chickpeas and pasta as well there's risi e bisi which is rice and peas which you know I think you had it in the menu last time I was here and the other night I had it at a dinner in Venice it was so good I always my mother-in-law used to say you must put she was Italian from Trieste you have to put a pea in for every grain of rice every grain of rice So it's that and there's what we're doing.

28:25We're doing new recipes with Cavolo Nero, Sottova Ribollita.

28:37Tell me about, you say that you're a sailor. You say that you've sailed and that we were talking about being solitary and being, you know, against in the wild, you're within nature with the force of the wind and the sea. when you're sailing, when you're in the water, are you thinking about the memories or the feeling that you have of how does the food come into that experience? Probably my next film will present this. Maybe I'm giving a hint on that. So the ocean is a very wild place. And eating in this very wild environment, and you are basically on a boat, you're on a kind of a moving island.

29:20What's the longest trip you've taken on a boat? Maybe 25 days without stopping. 25 days without stopping. Where was that between where and where? That was with an Italian skipper called Giovanni Soldini from Okinawa to Melbourne. How many were on the boat? We were probably 10. Wow. Yeah, 10, I would say. 10 or 8, I don't remember exactly. And I think the food is, so there's of course a deep love for the ocean as an athlete, but there's also one as just extremely fascinated by that environment that I had the opportunity to explore and firsthand. And all of this together has led me to really study and understand the relationship between food and seafaring, you know, which is thousands of years old.

30:14And a lot of the methods that we use to preserve food today are directly linked with the ability to load it on a ship and go for a longer voyage. So if you take a Dutch waxed cheese, the waxing is a method to make sure that water or animals cannot access the cheese in a voyage. So even though everything has changed, there's a human component of it that kind of stays the same. Sometimes we joke about the technology of this boat when I sail offshore is incredible and everything has changed but the feeling of being wet and cold in a bank is the same now as it was 2000 years ago the water is still cold the water is still rough so there is something that is completely cast through the generation and and and this research about how do we eat when you are offshore and also what can you invent so that you can go for longer voyages without going into the initial cracks of it but there's really so many examples of how the two are strictly connected and it's a beautiful shared history when you get off the boat and this leads to my last question when you get off the boat is there something that you really crave that you need to to to eat when you get back to italy yes i probably either risotto salto which is the yellow risotto but made the day after on the pan in the oven yeah or even just a spaghetti with pomodoros tomato and one of the two another comfort food i have is tortellae di zucca, a pumpkin sweet filled pasta.