Babette's Feast

One of the great foodie movies, Gabriel Axel’s adaptation of a story by Danish author Karen Blixen (Out Of Africa) picked up the 1987 Oscar for Best Foreign Film. In the title role, Stéphane Audran plays a mysterious Frenchwoman who in 1871 comes to an austere Lutheran community in Jutland and is taken on as their cook. After years of preparing their abstemious diet she nets a lottery win - and decides to blow the lot on a grand gourmet feast for her disconcerted employers. Audran is luminous as the centre of a gentle, generous film about grace. Oh, and grub. Babette's Feast News and Features