Private Project

"Let Them Eat Cake"

Six years in the making, filmed in a dozen countries, "Let Them Eat Cake" runs the full gamut from the pleasures and dangers of overeating to the tragedies of world hunger. As Zen Buddhist Abbot, Shodo Harada Roshi, whom we filmed in the Sogenji Monastery says, "Equal food distribution is fundamental for constructing a society in which there is true peace."

  • Alexis Krasilovsky
    Director
    "Women Behind the Camera"; "Let Them Eat Cake"; "Beale Street"; "Exile" "What Memphis Needs"; "End of the Art World" and other films.
  • Alexis Rafael Krasilovsky
    Writer
    "Women Behind the Camera"; "Let Them Eat Cake"; "Exile"; "What Memphis Needs"; nonfiction author: "Great Adaptations: Screenwriting and Global Storytelling" (and under the pseudonym Alexis Rafael, the novel "Sex and the Cyborg Goddess")
  • Alexis Krasilovsky
    Producer
    "Women Behind the Camera," "Let Them Eat Cake," "What Memphis Needs," "Exile" and other films
  • Shodo Harada Roshi
    Key Cast
    "self (Abbot, Sogenji Monastery, Japan"
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Feature
  • Genres:
    poetic essay film
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 20 minutes 58 seconds
  • Production Budget:
    70,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    Bangladesh, France, Guinea, India, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Peru, Somalia, Türkiye
  • Language:
    Bengali, English, French, Japanese, Somali, Spanish, Telugu, Turkish
  • Shooting Format:
    1920 X 1080
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
  • Edward Kennedy Center
    Dhaka
    Bangladesh
  • Ceres Food Film Festival
    New York
    United States
    October 19, 2022
    New York
    Official Selection
Distribution Information
  • Rafael Film, LLC
    Distributor
    Country: Worldwide
    Rights: All Rights
  • Canyon Cinema
    Distributor
    Country: Worldwide
    Rights: Internet, Video on Demand, Theatrical, Video / Disc
Director Biography - Alexis Krasilovsky

ALEXIS KRASILOVSKY is the author of Great Adaptations: Screenwriting and Global Storytelling (Routledge – 2nd Place Winner, 2019 International Writers Awards). As writer/director, her films include End of the Art World, featuring Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns, and the global documentary features Let Them Eat Cake and Women Behind the Camera (about the challenges faced by camerawomen around the world) – winners of five Best Documentary awards. Her short film, Blood, was reviewed in the Los Angeles Times as “in its stream-of-consciousness way, more powerful than Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver.” Krasilovsky is a member of the Writers Guild of America West. She is Professor Emerita, Department of Cinema and Television Arts, California State University, Northridge. Visit Alexis Krasilovsky’s website at www.alexiskrasilovsky.com for more.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

In the early 1980’s I was living in San Francisco making holograms. Between films, I desperately wanted a “normal” life, filled with babies and birthday cakes. I tried to stuff my feelings with Sylvia Plath’s poetry and chocolate doughnuts. I stared at the empty oven. I began to photograph the doughnuts. This is how the idea of LET THEM EAT CAKE originated.

I buried it for 25 years, until I found myself traveling around the world filming and screening my first global documentary--about camerawomen and the conflicts that we face. The contrast between the lavish festival food and the starving protests of thousands not far from the Dhaka International Film Festival made a deep impact. It wasn’t enough to talk about the contrast: the world hunger crisis was too severe. What could we do as filmmakers?

Back in the US, I began to think of pastry as the magical amulet that could seduce viewers into examining the stories behind the ingredients--sugar, wheat/rice/corn, and chocolate: the farmers toiling in sugarcane fields of India and the flooded cornfields of Peru; workers rolling out the dough in a baklava factory in Turkey; children harvesting cocoa in West Africa; and rickshaw drivers in Bangladesh who were on the brink of starvation.

Meeting filmmakers at festivals around the work compelled me to think transnationally and transculturally, joined by Co-Producers, Unit Producers and Unit Directors from Bangladesh, France, India, Japan, Mexico, Peru, the Republic of Guinea, Turkey and other countries. Rather than impose my voice on others, I listened. By working together, I believe our film will have the strongest possible impact in addressing the world hunger crisis.