Massimo Bottura Documentary: Theater of Life

A visual feast, this film will feed your spirit and your appetite.

Theater of Life is the documentary about the Refettorio Ambrosiano, an extraordinary soup kitchen conceived by renowned chef Massimo Bottura in a socio-culinary experiment conducted during the Milan 2015 World’s Fair and designed to answer one simple question: "What if food waste could feed the hungry?"

The adventures behind Bottura's experimental pop up kitchen are chronicled by film director Peter Svatek and the journey he took last year, along with 60 of his peers and colleagues from around the world, including the likes of René Redzepi, Daniel Humm, Gastón Acurio, Alain Ducasse and Virgilio Martinez. All took leave of their world class restaurants to join the visionary chef of Osteria Francescana, the best restaurant in the world, and support him in his quest to cook meals for refugees and the homeless of Milan using waste food from the world EXPO.

The film takes its name from the soup kitchen venue, an abandoned theatre in Greco, Milan, where the stage became the kitchen for some of the best chefs in the world and the auditorium the dining room for refugees and the homeless to be served gourmet food made from waste.

Here's the trailer:

The documentary has already been screened in Spain and Canada and comes to Australia in November in collaboration with the charity OzHarvest, an Australian food aid charity. In keeping with the philanthropic intention of the original kitchen, each ticket sold will provide 14 meals to those in need around Australia as well as supporting a nutrition education program NEST and hospitality training course for less fortunate youth in Nourish.

“Massimo Bottura’s global star status within the food industry brings much-needed focus on the issue of eliminating hunger and food waste,” says Kahn. “This film showcases Massimo’s extraordinary leadership on global issues which we hope will inspire chefs as well as home cooks to take meaningful action on the social challenges that we face today,” reported Broadsheet.com

Here's Massimo offering up some tips on how to save producing waste food at home, including taking just 20 minutes out of your day every few days to shop locally.