Consider a Tomato

A handwritten recipe book guides a filmmaker from her mother’s kitchen in Moldova to the high-tech greenhouses of Europe, uncovering industrial takeover of farming, memories and migration, all through the story of a single tomato.

In this documentary, director Marina Sulima follows the journey of a single tomato, tracing its path from her mother’s kitchen in Moldova to the high-tech greenhouses of Europe. Guided by a family recipe manuscript, she uncovers the lives and labour entwined with these tomatoes – connecting home kitchens, Moldovan fields, and industrial production lines. Crafted with care and a deeply personal perspective, the film mirrors the way tomatoes were once tended by hand. Through one humble fruit, this poignant, inquisitive, and richly observational documentary invites viewers to rethink the choices we make about what we eat, how it reaches our tables, and what the future of food might hold.

The screening on Friday will be followed by a Q&A with director Marina Sulima and producer Manon Bovenkerk. After the screening on Saturday, the audience is invited to join the Talk: Making Films Across Europe’s Divide at 14:00, with director Marina Sulima and producer Manon Bovenkerk. The admission for the talk is free, but requires registration. You can RSVP for the talk here.

Programme section: Docs Open Debates / New Female Voices
Original title: Consider a Tomato | Year: 2025 | Duration: 74′
Country: Netherlands, Moldova | Language: Romanian, Dutch, English | Subtitles: English
Director: Marina Sulima | Production: Manon Bovenkerk – near/by film | Screenplay: Marina Sulima | Cinematography: Andrei Moraru, Thomas Grootoonk, Marina Sulima | Editing: Albert Elings | Music: Sanam Tahmasebi

DIRECTOR’S BIO 

Marina Sulima is an artist born in Moldova, working and living in Groningen. She graduated in 2020 from Minerva Academy in Groningen with “Parcelpaedia”, a short film about the Italy Syndrome: a depression specific to Eastern European women who work as caregivers in Italy. The film received a Wildcard from the Netherlands Film Fonds, which allowed her to make a long, creative documentary “Consider a Tomato”.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

It all started with the anger of being told that LED-light-grown tomatoes can feed the world. That high-tech agriculture has overcome its dependency on land. By following a simple tomato, I wanted to poke at this myth and show its global tentacles. I did not want to travel the world to make this film. I did not want to make a personal film either. But when I started browsing through a family recipe manuscript, I saw history unfolding in and through my mother’s recipes. I browsed through it, scouring for clues. Clues or answers to questions that food makes you think of. Where does food come from, how it’s made, what kinds of lives are linked to different ways of growing food. What way of life follows if farming becomes a monster with a spraying tractor for its head and all the world’s resources – copper, aluminium, lithium and arsenic – to stuff its belly with. This essay-film is my offering on the altar of a disappearing form of life. To preserve it, not just for looking at.