Valser Whisks Up Emotion and Celebrates Culinary Culture with 'Chefstories'

'Chefstories' isn’t about recipes or accolades, it’s about the moments that make food a language of care, connection, and love.

Produced by Dynamic Frame and directed by Maximilian Speidel with DOP Rokas Šydeikis, the series was shot across four locations in Switzerland, each reflecting a different facet of culinary culture: in Zurich, the focus is on urban fine dining and warm hospitality; Vals celebrates regionality and traditional craftsmanship; Lugano embodies Mediterranean lightness with unique in-house produce; while Geneva pulses with city energy and culinary mastery.

"Growing up with an Italian mother, I was introduced to intense love and cooking the moment I set foot on this planet. So, it felt completely natural to write short poems about love, relationships, and connection, using water as a metaphor for life and the invisible current that ties these films together," said Maximilian Speidel.

The campaign observes cooking as an act of connection. Food here is never just nourishment: it is patience, attentiveness, and care. It's listening instead of controlling, time as an ingredient, transformation as a shared act. Each episode is framed by poetic reflections, tying gestures of the kitchen to intimacy, love, and connection.

The films follow a Documentary+ approach: real chefs, real kitchens, authentic dishes captured through a carefully composed, cinematic lens. To capture these intimate moments without disruption, the team relied on a small crew, keeping the set compact and mobile.

“For me, Documentary Plus means something alive and spontaneous, but grounded in clear artistic intention,” Maximilian Speidel explained. “It starts long before the shoot — with research, story development, and defining the emotional rhythm of the film. Once you are on set and you've build the trust with your protagonist, you can improvise freely without losing consistency.”

This method combines the honesty of documentary filmmaking with the precision and poetry of fiction. It’s about enhancing reality without staging it; allowing truth to unfold, while framing it with intention, rhythm, and emotional clarity.

"It's rare and very refreshing to have a possibility to produce a branded work that feels this poetic and visually strong. And the fact that both client and agency embraced this approach made the whole journey fairly easy," said producer, Jeanna Koba. "When you aligned with agency, client, and creative team, you can make something intimate and cinematic, even with limited means. That’s the sweet spot for me as a producer."

At the heart of 'Chefstories' flows a single element, water, not as a product, but as a metaphor for emotion, adaptability, and transformation. It moves through stone, through hands, through memory; it connects chefs to their ingredients, places to people, and work to care.

“Water is incredibly powerful,” said Maximilian. “It represents emotion and transformation — the same qualities that define love. I wanted it to become a mirror for connection, a poetic way to talk about intimacy and creation. There’s a reason Bruce Lee said, ‘Be water, my friend.’”

The result is a series of films that feel less like commercials and more like cinematic essays — fluid, sensory, and deeply human. Authenticity was the compass.To portray the craft and people in their natural environment, was essential. Instead of staging, the team spent time with each chef, observing the rhythm of their kitchens.

“You can’t rush intimacy. Before the shoot, we spend time together with each chef — share meals, talk about life. That’s when people open up. Once the camera is rolling, it’s just a continuation of that conversation, only in visual form,” said continued Maximilian Speidel.

The camera language followed the same principle: quiet, observant, never intrusive. Rokas Šydeikis, the DOP, and Maximilian worked together on several projects, and they share a similar passion for nature, taste, and aesthetics. For 'Chefstories', they decided early on that the camera should be patient with locked-off frames, natural light, and a slow rhythm that mirrors the chefs’ care and dedication.

Though cinematic in scope, 'Chefstories' was produced on a tight budget — a challenge the team embraced from the very beginning. It demanded full alignment, trust, and collaboration across every side of the production.

“That’s the beauty of small projects. Constraints can be creative fuel if everyone’s aligned. We knew what mattered and protected that, everything else, we adapted. It’s collaboration built on reliance upon each other and require a lot of flexibility," said Jeanna.

'Chefstories' proves that branded work can be poetic without losing authenticity, that cinematic storytelling can thrive even within small crews and modest resources, and that water, simple, essential, and universal, can carry more emotion than any line of dialogue.