Kino Lorber Buys Cooking Documentary ‘Chef Flynn’ (EXCLUSIVE)
By Dave McNary
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Kino Lorber has acquired all U.S. rights to Cameron Yates’ documentary feature, “Chef Flynn,” for theatrical release in November followed by VOD and home video release late next winter.
“” had its world premiere at 2018 Sundance Film Festival and its international premiere at the 68th Berlin International Film Festival in February. It was also an official selection at SXSW this year.
The movie is directed by Cameron Yates, produced by Laura Coxson, executive produced by Philipp Engelhorn, and edited by Hannah Buck, with original music from Brooklyn-based electro-pop band Holy Ghost!
“Chef Flynn” centers on chef prodigy Flynn McGarry who started his culinary career at age 10, transforming his California living room into a restaurant using his classmates as line cooks and serving a tasting menu foraged from his neighbors’ backyards. The supper club, Eureka, eventually operated as pop-ups in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York.
With sudden fame (including a New York Times Magazine cover story at age 15), Flynn outgrows his bedroom kitchen and sets out to challenge the hierarchy of the culinary world. The film includes 18 years of personal archival footage from Flynn and his mother and is an intimate look at a talented teen’s coming-of-age with a glaring media spotlight, critics, and a mother who questions giving up her own identity to help further her child’s passion.
“A coming of age tale like no other, ‘Chef Flynn’ turns ‘foodie doc’ conventions upside down, its culinary passion infused with innocence as much as obsession,” said CEO Richard Lorber.
“A kitchen prodigy grows up in front of our eyes as his mother lovingly documents a son’s unusual path even as she questions and discovers her own. The dishes emerging from the mind and hands of this disarmingly charming boy never cease to amaze but we come away appreciating so much more than food at stake,” he added. “At Kino Lorber we’re salivating to serve this delectably original cinematic concoction to audiences nationwide.”
Guy Lodge wrote in his review for Variety, “There’s a different, darker film lurking beneath the lusciously edible Food Network surface of “ Chef Flynn ,” and when director Cameron Yates lets it peek out from the gastroporn, like little chips of charcoal in a white chocolate mousse, you feel a slight jab in your gut.”
Lorber negotiated the deal with Jason Ishikawa at Cinetic Media.
