Bloodline

Jeff den Broeder edited this film directed by James Chan and Santhosh Daniel. “Bloodline” is a documentary about Bay Area chef Tu David Phu discovering that the lessons learned in his family kitchen run deeper than his formal training. The film joins Phu just as he returns home to Oakland, California after being a contestant on the competitive cooking series, Top Chef (Season 15). As he and his parents prepare a Saturday dinner, drawing on his mother’s self-taught culinary repertoire (which began in a Thai refugee camp), and his father’s ancestry as a free-diver and fishmonger from Phú Quốc, Vietnam, Tu reflects on his visibility as a “celebrity chef,” tracing how he went from refugee roots and a childhood in West Oakland, to this new life by relying on things learned from his family kitchen--rather than the “formal” skills and training learned in culinary school--including how to turn something “inedible,” such as fish bloodline, into a beautiful dish.

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