“Cooking With Kumar” was presented in the “Dear MKE” shorts program at the Milwaukee Film Festival on October 9, 2014. I will be reviewing each short – most under five minutes in length – and gauging whether they are worthy of expansion into a longer-form short or feature.
It was kind of neat to see an actor that I know (Kumar Pallana from Wes Anderson’s films among others, who passed away last year) walking around my hometown. I’m sure there was a lot of footage shot for this short, but I think the real story centers around La Merenda chef Peter Sandroni and his love of ethnic cuisine and technique. I would love to spend more time with the guy and thusly, I think it would be a story worth expanding on. Director Frankie Latina has a solid documentary eye and has some good cinematic chops (his pulpy ode to 1970’s exploitation, 2009’s Modus Operandi, was a hoot), so I look forward to seeing what he has for us in the coming years.
