How did the idea to document the El Bulli restaurant come about?

To be honest, I had never been inside a star-rated restaurant, much less in one with three stars. What intrigued us was the fact that this chef would close his restaurant for six months to come up with new ideas. The cooks seclude themselves, like in a cloister, forfeiting half a year's business, to express their creativity. I found that odd and fascinating. From the very beginning, the filmʼs focus clearly lay on their work in the Taller. Taller is a Catalan word for workshop, but it means studio too. Creative processes had already interested me in my previous films.

Did you face any particular challenges in gaining permission to film inside the El Bulli kitchen?

Actually no. Even beginning the project was astonishingly easy. We simply wrote an e-mail to Ferran and outlined our project. He invited us and we then more or less planed the project. One important question for us was if he had any secrets he didn't want to disclose. His answer was: no. And "no" it was and we could move freely the whole time and film whatever we wanted. But we didn't overdo it and only filmed for a few evenings in the restaurant when it was in full action.

Was there any reluctance on the part of the staff to reveal the process that goes into creating the unique cuisine at El Bulli? What challenges did you face in bringing this process to the screen?

The big challenge always is to bring patience along to a project and to precisely observe what is happening without wanting to understand everything immediately. During our first shoot in the Taller we were still quite bewildered, as we realized how complex the processes are, how quickly they were conceived and made, how quickly things developed and how dificult it is to follow. Although I can understand and speak Spanish and Catalan the chefs use a very much encoded language and often use gestures and glances to communicate.  Anna Ginestí Rosell, my wife and film partner, was immensely important in understanding and anticipating interesting situations. Also important was the access to all their material – in the film you can see how each experiment is carefully documented, with a report sheet for each dish. We were allowed to copy these reports and use them to prepare the next phase of shooting. This material also proved to be very useful during editing, as they helped to identify the dishes and identified which ingredients were used.

How much time did you spend shooting footage for the documentary and following the work of Ferran Adria and his staff?

We shot over a period of 15 months in twelve phases so that we were able to cover the whole cycle of El Bulli. The project had been in planning for two years before that and editing the film took then another 8 months.

Did you realize at the time you were filming that the restaurant would be closing, and that your film may stand as the final filmed record of El Bulli?

That is a coincidence. We also only knew that in january 2010 when the shooting had already been completed. Lets see which way Ferran and his team are going to go now but I believe we are all very happy to have documented the unique working methods of El Bulli with this film.

Did you find yourself influenced by any other documentaries while making the film?

I wasn't inspired by films about cooking but rather by films that try to give an insight into a creative process like "The Mystery of Picasso" by Henri-Georges Clouzot. But more crucial to me is the method and I was very much influenced by the american idols of the uncontrolled cinema like Pennebaker, Leacock, Wiseman or the brothers Maysles. Centering on the situation, the scene and the protagonists in an observing way with a minimum of interviews or staged situations.