The 33rd annual Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival kicks off with an unusual tour of the field kitchens of the second half of the 20th century. From the black bread that fed the Soviet soldiers who beat back the Nazis from Leningrad to the “monkey meat” rations of France’s colonial war in Algeria, we meet the men and women who cooked for the armies on Europe’s bloody battlefields. While slaughtering a pig for Hungarian kolbasz, rolling out dough for bread to feed the German soldiers who take Poland, or spicing meat for Serbian soldiers during the Balkan Wars of the 90s, these veterans share their recipes, all the while recounting the costs of war. With an eye for dark humor yet always displaying a sensitivity to the horrors both committed and witnessed, Peter Kerekes dares to ask the question: if no one cooked for the armies of the world, would war be over? Part of the Along the Modern Silk Road screening series.




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