SXSW Review: ‘We Feed People’ Documentary Explores One Man’s Passionate Devotion To Food

deadline.com:

After spending 90 minutes watching major league celebrity chef Jose Andres hustling to deliver food to desperate people in far-flung corners of the globe, it’s almost shocking to see him being tripped up simply because his little plane has run out of gas.

By this time, you believe that this guy could just keep running on fumes indefinitely.Ron Howard’s brisk National Geographic Films documentary puts you right in the planes, trucks, and kitchens to witness how one passionate man’s devotion to food in all its manifestations morphed into a new international enterprise to help the poor in desperate straits.A very busy guy in media for 63 years now, Howard has directed eight documentaries (as well as five dramatic features) over the past decade.

In Andres, he has a very attention-getting camera subject, a larger-than-life Spaniard who, at a very young age, moved to the United States, put tapas on the American culinary map, opened a raft of trendy restaurants, and most notably created the World Central Kitchen, a nonprofit humanitarian aid organization devoted to delivering food relief to the needy in crisis situations.There’s hardly a scene in this always-on-the-move film that doesn’t involve Andres and/or some of his associates jumping into helicopters or other vehicles, then wading through floods and mud and detritus-strewn disaster areas while arranging for nutrition to somehow get delivered desperate populations.

And what they’re providing aren’t K-rations—it actually looks good to eat.“I cook and I feed,” is Andres’ credo, one that embraces his high-end restaurants such as Jaleo, China Chilcano, and Zaytinya, as well as whatever he can find to rush off to the needy at a moment’s notice.