We’re in Sweden during the Gothenburg International Film Festival and managed to find an American film about mushroom pickers in the programme. Naturally we had to go and see it, so yesterday we filed into the Biopalatset with a bunch of other film or funghi enthusiasts and watched Now, Forager: a Film about Love and Funghi. We were impressed by the lovely cinematography – the scenes in the forest were beautiful, with great shots of interesting flora and fauna, especially wild mushrooms of course. Lucien, the lead male character in the film, names and describes the mushrooms he forages as the film progresses, and there’s a poignant moment when he’s city based and the camera picks out concrete and metal urban furniture that get given mushroom names instead of the real thing. It’s a memorable little low budget film, worth watching for the scenery, what you’ll learn about mushrooms, and the recurrent theme of great food, but we felt the love mentioned in the title was lacking a little. Thankfully we have loads more fun picking mushrooms together in the woods than poor Lucien and his wife Regina seemed to have!

The film is showing tomorrow in Gothenburg and at the Glasgow Film Festival in the UK on February 22nd /23rd. For more info have a look at the website: nowforager.com
Follow @getfunghi