Directing and creative collective TASTE has brought director Victoria Granof aboard its roster for spots and branded content worldwide. This marks her first affiliation with a production company in the ad market. Based in New York, L.A. and Vienna, TASTE has a lineup of directors that includes Thomas Schauer, Stuart Parr, and Margaret Elman.
Granof is a pioneer and maverick in the world of food imagery, with two decades of creative collaboration with top brands and image-makers. Her work is informed by her background in visual art and classical culinary training from Le Cordon Bleu.
While most directors specializing in food and tabletop start their careers in photography, Granof began as a food stylist, attracted by the opportunity to combine art, design, and food all in one place. She soon launched her career with a decade-long collaboration with the legendary fashion photographer Irving Penn, collaborating with him on iconic work for Vogue. Since this auspicious start, she has brought her unique sensibility to her work with many of the world’s top photographers and directors, creating dramatic and provocative images for both editorial and corporate clients.
Granof’s work has graced the pages of The New York Times T Magazine, New York Magazine, Cherry Bombe, Vogue, Food52, Martha Stewart, the New Yorker, and Bon Appetit. An author herself, she has also collaborated on cookbooks with numerous high profile chefs.
Granof then joined the directorial ranks, he first film being Drop the Beet. “I’ve had the privilege of wearing many hats in our industry,” said Granof. “Directing is the natural next step for me, bringing all of my passion and experience together in one place. I’m thrilled to be able to call TASTE my home.”
“Victoria is known for her ‘beauty is where you find it’ approach,” to food imagery, in addition to being one of the most creatively respected women in the world of culinary arts, said Becky Donahue, TASTE executive producer.
TASTE partner Tim Case added, “All of us who do this for a living search high and low for unique talents. Becky found Victoria, and Thomas and I knew we wanted to partner with her immediately.”
Review: Writer-Director Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance”
In its first two hours, "The Substance" is a well-made, entertaining movie. Writer-director Coralie Fargeat treats audiences to a heavy dose of biting social commentary on ageism and sexism in Hollywood, with a spoonful of sugar- and sparkle-doused body horror.
But the film's deliciously unhinged, blood-soaked and inevitably polarizing third act is what makes it unforgettable.
What begins as a dread-inducing but still relatively palatable sci-fi flick spirals deeper into absurdism and violence, eventually erupting — quite literally — into a full-blown monster movie. Let the viewer decide who the monster is.
Fargeat — who won best screenplay at this year's Cannes Film Festival — has been vocal about her reverence for "The Fly" director David Cronenberg, and fans of the godfather of body horror will see his unmistakable influence. But "The Substance" is also wholly unique and benefits from Fargeat's perspective, which, according to the French filmmaker, has involved extensive grappling with her own relationship to her body and society's scrutiny.
"The Substance" tells the story of Elisabeth Sparkle, a famed aerobics instructor with a televised show, played by a powerfully vulnerable Demi Moore. Sparkle is fired on her 50th birthday by a ruthless executive — a perfectly cast Dennis Quaid, who nails sleazy and gross.
Feeling rejected by a town that once loved her and despairing over her bygone star power, Sparkle learns from a handsome young nurse about a black-market drug that promises to create a "younger, more beautiful, more perfect" version of its user. Though she initially tosses the phone number in the trash, she soon fishes it out in a desperate panic and places an order.
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