In this kitchen things get rough: the apprentice is pelted with vegetables and the cook gets the frying pan brought down on his skull. Bon appétit! The duel that Jacob Jesse and Jörg Moukaddam stage in the commercial for the food, beverages and catering union (Gewerkschaft Nahrung-Genuss-Gaststätten) is acted, of course, but the reality in many a restaurant kitchen is said to be similar. After all, around 52% of trainee cooks give up their apprenticeship in the very first year because of working conditions. So that young trainees know who stands by them with help and advice in case of doubt, the union has now commissioned this film. For the two actors it was, in this case, great fun to play with the cliché. "When I read the story, I immediately saw that the role is mega funny. That then turned out to be just as true during the shoot," recounts the 18-year-old Jacob Jesse. "We harmonised superbly," Jörg Moukaddam agrees. But not everyone on set was in the mood for jokes. The actual cook of the vocational-school training kitchen in which they filmed did not find it funny in the slightest. "You could tell right away — it's extremely un-relaxed in there," Jörg Moukaddam recalls. All the more reason to make the film. By all the rules of the trade they then staged the devil's kitchen — that is, throwing the fruit so it did not hit anyone in the eye, and stopping the frying pan a hair's breadth from the head but filming it from just the right angle to make the viewer's head spin. When Jörg Moukaddam bawls out his spotty trainee, the kitchen shakes. These two go together so marvellously that watching them, you immediately want more. Let us hope their kitchen duel helps aspiring cooks — and that some resourceful screenwriter dreams up the next gag for Jacob and Jörg!
In the Devil's Kitchen
