What is the strange bond between Luca Treves, a famous chef and spice connoisseur, and Andreas Dürren Fischer, renowned restorer of Flemish paintings? Two different worlds, art and cuisine, collide in a tense and mysterious thriller. Andreas will bring Luca on a road trip across Germany’s dense forests and Austria’s mountains during which the restorer will uncover piece by piece unspeakable secrets, forcing the chef to face his ghosts and make appalling choices. But there is a man that follows them at a distance: a detective who has worked for years on an international terrifying cold case. Will he be able to find the answers he’s looking for and save Luca from falling into this dangerous private hell?

DIRECTOR'S NOTES:
Diario di spezie is haunted by ghosts engendered by the impossibility of choosing one’s own fate, obtaining justice, and cleansing one’s soul of atrocious misdeeds. The conflict between these strands is what triggers the dramatic dynamic and sets the tone of the film. All the filmic elements take part in this dialogue between underlying currents: we worked with the actors on their cadence, posture, and the relationships between their bodies, while for the cinematography, our deliberate use of natural light was essential; it conveyed the universe’s indifference to human fates. The open spaces at the beginning of the film gradually become closed, gloomy settings; the car they travel in a claustrophobic cell. It all feeds into the battlefield portrayed between three people fighting to survive being subjugated to others.