Feasting on hope

Written, directed and edited by David Baksh, and produced by Annex, these four films will have you simultaneously salivating while navigating the lump in your throat. 

They profile the work of Beyond Food Foundation, a social enterprise set up by Michelin-starred chef Simon Boyle, that uses the hospitality industry to provide a route back into employment for people with a history of homelessness. 

After reading how the charity had helped hundreds of vulnerable people off the streets and into work, via courses ranging from basic nutrition to full-time apprenticeships in Boyle’s London restaurant Brigade, Baksh approached Simon wanting to tell the Foundation’s story. They started to collaborate on a trilogy of about the apprentices’ journeys that would both encourage applicants and donations.

Set against well-crafted footage of culinary endeavour, the spoken word scripts use skilfully wrought idioms and metaphors as the tales move from hardship to hope. 

In Heat, individuals talk of feeling the heat of the daily grind as they seek the next meal; the next bed. But if they can stand the heat they can stay in the kitchen, and getting out of the fire of despair they land happily into the frying pan of prepping yummy fried breakfasts. 

Pressure poetically expresses how those of us – and we know who we are – who complain about the pressure of work, can’t begin to imagine the pressures of having no work, no family and no home. 

And in Leftovers they describe what it’s like to be the ‘left behind’, the scraps of society, ready to be discarded. But now, they are proud to display the delicious fayre they have learned how to produce from ‘leftover’ ingredients. 
Each of the three heartwarming films ends with the line “ the future’s so good I can taste it.”

But then Covid-19 and lockdown struck – the virtual halting of the hospitality industry looked set to end the Foundation’s work, but Boyle would not be beaten. “Simon thought he might have to shutter the business,” explains Baksh, “it was touch and go right up until the furlough scheme was announced and bought him some time. Time to make like a virus – and mutate.”