''Paavo, A Life in Five Courses'' (2010) is a Finnish-American documentary film directed, produced and written by

Hanna Hemilä Hanna Hemilä is a Finnish film producer, director and writer. Some of her most notable producing credits include ''Moomins on the Riviera'' (2014), ''Le Havre (film)'' (2011), ''Bad Family (film)'' (2010), ''Pelikaanimies'' (2004), and the period ...

. Shot in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

and

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

, the documentary follows the life of internationally acclaimed chef and event planner ''Paavo Turtiainen''.

Synopsis

Finnish farm boy Paavo Turtiainen is hired into the Parisian household of Swedish theatre producer Lars Schmidt and his wife, actress

Ingrid Bergman Ingrid Bergman (29 August 191529 August 1982) was a Swedish actress who starred in a variety of European and American films, television movies, and plays.Obituary ''Variety'', 1 September 1982. With a career spanning five decades, she is often ...

. The couple “adopt” and train Paavo to navigate among the rich and famous. Encouraged by Schmidt, Paavo moves to New York and becomes an acclaimed chef and event planner for high society. Along the way, Paavo learns to stand on his own feet. In the film Ingrid Bergman's daughters

Isabella Rossellini Isabella Fiorella Elettra Giovanna Rossellini (born 18 June 1952) is an Italian-American actress, author, philanthropist, and model. The daughter of the Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman and the Italian film director Roberto Rossellini, she is noted ...

and

Pia Lindström Friedel Pia Lindström (born 20 September 1938) is a Swedish television journalist, and the first child of actress Ingrid Bergman. Life and career Lindström is the only child born to Ingrid Bergman and her first husband, Swedish neurosurgeon ...

talk about their “brother” and Lars Schmidt's son Kristian describes how it was growing up with Paavo. In contrast to hectic New York, we spend time in the relaxing Swedish archipelago, watch Paavo pick mushrooms in the Finnish forests and visit the railway station in the tiny Finnish town of Karis, where Paavo first encountered Ingrid Bergman – on a magazine cover.

External links

'Paavo, a Life in Five Courses' Website
* Finnish documentary films American documentary films 2010 films Swedish-language films 2010 documentary films Documentary films about food and drink Films about chefs 2010s English-language films 2010s American films {{bio-documentary-film-stub