Hawaii International Film Festival / Intentionally or not, most of the food film screenings at the Hawaii International Film Festival are scheduled around dinner time. Too bad none of the films feature hot dogs and popcorn; the usual movie concessions probably aren’t going to satiate post-viewing food cravings.

Antique

Antique is like Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge in a cake shop. At times silly and over-the-top with characters described as “The Gay of Demonic Charm” or “The Emperor of French Pastry,” the movie leaves me wondering if there’s something lost in translation. But judging by the antics on the screen, maybe not. There’s a bit of a mystery to be solved in the movie, but like the detective in the middle of stakeout who gets distracted by cake, I, too, have a hard time focusing on the plot (probably for the better). Instead, I’m happily diverted by images of sweets like a sweet potato Mont Blanc, a lemon crème tart and raspberry mousse cake filling the screen in tantalizing detail. Some of the caricatures are cringe-inducing, but in the end, it’s hard not to be won over by a movie with this message: “Cake will make even your happiest moments better.”

Noriben

The beginning of Noriben is as kawaii as any Hello Kitty-adorned Japanese sweet. School kids open their bentos (boxed lunches) to discover rice shaped like bunnies, rice dyed green and molded into a frog’s face and a “Flag of Italy” bento. The “Flag of Italy” is colored with snow peas and spinach (green), egg (yellow), and dried plum and salmon (red). No matter that the actual Italian flag doesn’t have yellow. Accuracy, especially when dealing with schoolchildren, is a small sacrifice for cuteness. Right? Well, anyway.

Nagai Komaki, 31 years old and a newly divorced single mother, takes a long time to discover what the audience already knows she’s meant to do. Though the movie starts off food-centric, with detailed cartoon dissections of each noriben, it becomes a commentary on a woman’s quest for financial independence in Japan. If Komaki’s plight is somewhat discouraging, a trip to Shirokiya for a bento or cute lunch box to pack your own Kerokerokeroppi rice might be in order.

Ingredients

Ingredients tells the story of the local food movement through farmers, chefs and luscious food cinematography. As director Robert Bates says, “You get to the end of Food, Inc. [a food documentary released in 2008], and you don’t want to eat for two days. You get to the end of Ingredients, and you’re really hungry.” The message of Ingredients–that solutions to our industrial food system’s ailments can be found in the local food movement–is made palatable with shots of glistening plates from restaurants and dew-kissed grapes in the mist.

Bates, a former resident of Honolulu now living in Oregon, directed the television series Hawaii Cooks with Roy Yamaguchi, and The Kitchen Sessions with Charlie Trotter, for which he received a James Beard award. A reception following Friday’s screening will include pupu from town restaurant and the HIFF cafe and a discussion with Bates, Ed Kenney from town, and Gary and Kukui Maunakea-Forth from MAO Farms.

Flavor of Happiness

A Japanese movie about Chinese food. An unwilling, gruff Chinese chef takes on a single-mother as an apprentice.

Sideways

The Japanese remake of Sideways, in which two guys take a road trip through California’s wine country before one of them gets hitched. You’ll have to watch to see if Asian glow plays a role in this version.

The Last Beekeeper

This documentary follows the lives of three commercial beekeepers grappling with colony collapse disorder, a phenomenon leading to the decline of honeybees. The effects of this are more far-reaching than just a shortage of honey; bees are required to pollinate many commercial crops, for a total estimated crop value of $15 billion. The beekeepers depicted–from South Carolina, Montana and Washington–bring their bees to California for annual almond pollination. Bee feedlots meet monoculture farming.