The joy of fresh chocolate

Food advertising too often relies on stylized illusions: polished fruit, staged faces, and artificially glossed visuals. For the three-part series The Joy of Fresh Chocolate, Ansich chose a fundamentally different path. At the heart of this work is no generic advertising claim, but the unadorned, documentary truth about the origin of exceptional taste: real people working with patience, generational knowledge, and deep respect for nature in their actual, everyday environments.

The films deliberately avoid polished voice-over studio recordings. Instead, the protagonists carry the narrative themselves—speaking in their native tongues, complete with regional dialects, natural pauses, and their own distinct rhythm. These voices were not smoothed out for a commercial script; they reflect the genuine mindset of people whose lives are intrinsically tied to the cycles of soil, weather, and harvest.

The cinematic journey links three elemental ingredients across three distinct geographic landscapes

Talamanca, Costa Rica

Deep within the rainforests of Talamanca, an indigenous Bribri farmer cultivates cocoa in harmony with ancestral knowledge passed down through generations. The camera observes the manual clearing of the biodiverse forest canopy with a machete, the cracking of fresh pods by hand, riverboat transit, and the multi-day fermentation process beneath broad banana leaves. A practice defined not by industrial haste, but by lifelong care and stewardship.

Thurgau, Switzerland

Free from alpine folklore and postcard clichés, the third installment grounds Swiss dairy farming in the fertile agricultural landscape of the Thurgau region. Speaking in his authentic local dialect, the farmer articulates his philosophy of food production: a closed ecological loop of pasture grass, natural soil enrichment, and healthy cows grazing at their natural pace. The quality of raw milk is not merely asserted, but made tangible as the natural outcome of a sustainable cycle.

Lower Piedmont, Italy

Across the rolling hills of Piedmont, a hazelnut grower recalls his earliest childhood memory—gathering nuts at the age of four with a hand-woven basket ("cavagnin") made by his grandfather. The film captures the unique regional microclimate, geometric tree orchards bathed in evening light, and the tactile, dusty selection and roasting process that yields the singular aroma of the Piedmont hazelnut.