Director, screenwriter and cinematographer.
The city-state of Singapore is a foodie's paradise, and for good reason: its population is made up of Chinese, Indians and Malaysians who have managed to preserve their rich culinary heritage, sometimes merging it. And the citizens are so gourmand here, that you can eat everywhere and all the time, especially in the "hawker centre", huge "food courts" where a crowd of workers is gathered. This leaves a lasting impression: and that's why the series Espèce d'ordures brought us here with the team.
In our memory, some countries are linked to flavours that we never forget. Especially when we are on location and living on a hectic schedule, sleeping only a few hours. We then take on quick and convenient eating habits, quickly spotting the snacks on the street corner. The acai smoothie in Rio de Janeiro, the Udon noodle soup in Tokyo, or the morning cappuccino (and its chocolate-filled croissant) from Venice will however not have left the same indelible mark on me as the Singaporean "kaya toast": two slices of white bread covered with a thick slice of butter and a generous layer of coconut jam that we dip in soft boiled eggs (the white remaining slightly translucent), all accompanied by a black coffee sweetened with sweetened condensed milk. A treat.
Chopsticks and Utensils at the Dump
In Singapore, hundreds of millions of chopsticks are used each year for eating, as well as nearly 1 billion plastic utensils. So we begin our televised journey by meeting a couple who recycles bamboo and wood chopsticks - reversing the chopstick manufacturing cycle, they disinfect them and compress them into tiles to be used for making furniture and other objects. As for plastic utensils - a real nuisance due to meal deliveries in this "workaholic" society - it is a young entrepreneur who impresses us with her "foodie" and ingenious solution: she cooks utensils, crunchy biscuits shaped like spoons and forks that are enjoyed with the meal.
An Ideas Lab
Although Singapore has no natural resources due to its smaller territory than the city of Toronto, its gold is the brainpower of the people who settle there. The city is a true ideas lab that invites banks, entrepreneurs and universities to collaborate. That is how at the Chinese district's fish market we meet a renowned professor for his research on chitin, a substance found in the shell of crustaceans. And here - we always come back to food - a lot of shrimp is eaten. The professor has thus experimented with a grinding and fermentation process of the shells that allows to transform the chitin into packaging paper! A process that could replace plastic in the near future.
Encouraging innovation
Whether it's recycling running shoes to make soft surfaces for sports fields, or a law that taxes electronics manufacturers to finance their recycling, the Singapore government is subsidizing or encouraging innovations at every turn for one very concrete reason: by the decisive date of 2035, the "garbage" island of Semakau, which serves as Singapore's dumping ground, will have reached saturation point. And the city-state will then have nowhere else to dispose of the gourmet leftovers and other waste products of its citizens' modern, spendthrift lifestyles.
Take a behind-the-scenes look at filming in Tokyo, Japan and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Learn more about the series Espèces d’ordures.
See the trailer of the series.
Director, screenwriter and cinematographer.
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