Slow Food Sacramento is co-presenting, on its US debut, -La Petite Cuisine de Mehdi, Spices and Lies-, along with the Sacramento French Film Festival. Get your tickets and join us at The Tower Theatre! Support Sacramento French Film Festival and support Slow Food!

Synopsis

In this mouthwatering comedy, Franco-Algerian chef Mehdi has trouble balancing his dual heritage. The only boy surrounded by sisters, he plays the role of the perfect Algerian son for his old-fashioned, widowed mother, Fatima. This means hiding his relationship with his white girlfriend and co-worker Léa, and his passion for French cuisine. As a result, Mehdi’s mother has never set foot in the traditional French bistro where he works, and the two women have never met. When Léa, unwilling to tolerate all this secrecy anymore, demands to finally meet Fatima, Mehdi, unable to face the situation, comes up with the worst possible solution: he enlists an eccentric bar owner (Hiam Abbass, from the HBO show Succession) to impersonate his mother. What could go wrong? Meanwhile, his real mom tries to set him up with a friend’s daughter. As a series of hilarious mix-ups drive him to cook up new outrageous stories, Mehdi digs himself deeper into his lies. Things are about to get spicy… and not only in the kitchen! Spices and Lies is Amine Adjina’s first film. He co-wrote the screenplay with Fabien Gorgeart, director of What is Love? the ensemble comedy closing the 25th SFFF on Sunday.