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Sweet Chef

Based on a true story. A former criminal realises his lifelong dream of becoming a chef, but old habits die hard.

synopsis

Running away from a murky past, the charming amateur chef Luka Martin (40) moves to Zagreb with nothing but a suitcase and a dream: to open the best restaurant in town. Balkan Soul becomes a hotspot for celebrities, politicians, and criminals. However, Luka’s generous nature and overspending constantly keep the place on the verge of bankruptcy. Desperate for money, he turns to Ante Godina, a figure from his past, and soon drifts from small errands into full- blown drug smuggling. To his own dismay, Luka slips back into the trade with disarming ease – his warm, harmless appearance makes him the perfect mule. Flush with cash, he reopens his restaurant, but as a chef he is never as successful as he is as a smuggler. Money runs dry again, and he is forced to continue smuggling to support the restaurant he loves so much. Meanwhile, the stubborn Interpol agent Mila grows suspicious of Luka. Though dismissed by her superiors, her persistence puts Ante’s entire operation in jeopardy. The crew suspects a mole – and they think it’s Luka. Luka is now trapped in a vicious circle: he has no talent for the life of a chef, but every gift for the criminal underworld he’s desperate to escape.

Director’statement

The Balkan criminal world has been done to death, curiously without ever being done at all. It involves certain expectations of a dark, violent world populated with dark, violent people who speak in big words. We aim to offer a different look into the crime world, through a guy who is the absolute opposite of everything you would expect from a Balkan criminal. On one side, the world of Luka’s restaurant. Balkan Soul. His baby, his pride. The chaotic, neurotic world of a terribly mismanaged kitchen and the business barely holding it up. The restaurant patrons. A world that represents Luka’s friendliness and loving, jolly nature. On the other side, the seedy world of pan-European drug running. Highways and gas stations. Suspicious handovers in giant ports. The world in which Luka reluctantly finds himself much more apt. The constant push and pull between the two worlds form the engine and the heart of Sweet Chef. Can we ever really change?

TFL PROGRAMME:
SeriesLab 2025

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