Monsieur Mayonnaise
Project Type: Past Project
Delivery Date: August 2016
Monsieur Mayonnaise is a story about the creation of a distinctive and personal graphic novel by Australian artist Philippe Mora. A bold and
personal feature documentary - it's a recipe of appetizing ingredients - demonic forces, innocent individuals, werewolves, Nazis, 20th century
history - all plated up with baguettes and mayonnaise.
The lead character in Philippe Mora's comic-work in progress, 'Monsieur Mayonnaise', is his late father Georges, renowed in Melbourne as a modern art pioneer, French restaurateur and bon vivant. But what isn't widely know is Georges's dramatic role in World War 2, as a member of the French Resistance, or the equally compelling chronicle of his wife Mirka, a celebrated artist, who as a teenager hid with her Jewish family in forests outside Paris, eluding deportation to Auschwitz. As a Resistance member, Georges was given the task of aiding French Jewish children to escape the Nazis. He earned his code name, 'Monsieur Mayonnaise', for devising an ingenious, uniquely French culinary method, for fooling Nazi border guards and the entire 3rd Reich - by stuffing Resistance secret documents inside baguettes, with lashings of dribbling, garlicky mayonnaise.
Monsieur Mayonnaise promises a fun, artsy, contemporary, foodie and audacious take on Nazis, comics, history and the French love affair with baguettes and garlic mayonnaise. As Mirka Mora proclaims, 'Vivre la mayonnaise!'
Writer/Director: Philippe Mora
Producers: Ned Lander, Lisa Wang, Trevor Graham & Carl-Ludwig Rettinger
Executive Producers: Andrew Myer, Joanna Baevski, Carrillo Gantner, Ziyin Gantner, Neilma Gantner & Roger Savage.
Principal Participant: Philippe Mora
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