Directors BRIAN KAUFMAN, MARK KURLYANDCHIK (US 2022) 90 min
Beloved chef Jimmy Lee Hill heads up a gourmet culinary training program at Lakeland Correctional Facility in Coldwater, Michigan. Nearing retirement after 30 years, his goal is unchanged: offering tender but tough tutelage that gives inmates a set of skills they can use outside prison to help them stay outside. Three of those men are tested: “Dink” Dawson immediately finds work in a kitchen, with all its challenges; after his release, Ernest Davis feels like he’s still tethered to the system; and Bradley Leonard, a recovering addict and experienced line cook, copes with personal demons from within prison walls. Skirting talking-head interviews in favor of a fly-on-the-wall narrative, directors Brian Kaufman and Mark Kurlyandchik use intimate camera work and compelling voiceovers to present endearing portraits of four men at the decision points that will determine the courses of their lives.