Rave Reviews

For the past few months, Sigrid Tiedtke has been carefully planning a delectable menu for the upcoming Florida Film Festival, collaborating with filmmakers and finalizing educational forums. Throughout it all, however, the president of the Enzian Theater in Maitland has one priority: watching all the late Paul Newman’s classics in chronological order. It’s her personal tribute to a friend and “American hero.”

Newman, who was a guest at the first Florida Film Festival in 1992 and later served on Enzian Theater’s National Board of Advisors, made visits for years afterward, occasionally sending the theater crew 50-pound bags of popcorn. It was a glitterati encounter that Tiedtke remembers clearly.

“Celebrities scare me to death,” she concedes. “I’m a little shy so I was a nervous wreck. But in walks Mister Good Guy, Mister Normal. He could put one at ease in a heartbeat, and he did.”

From the moment the debonair megastar sauntered up with his eyeglasses hanging off one ear and precariously dangling around his neck, he was a lifelong friend. Since then, Tiedtke has rubbed shoulders with other cinema greats like film director/screenwriter Oliver Stone and his extended family. Then there was Jason Lee (current star of “My Name Is Earl”), who at the time was so madly in love with his brand-new wife that he constantly asked Sigrid, “Where is she? Where is she?” “It was so sweet,” she recalls. “He would be up talking on stage and knew exactly where she was sitting so he could gaze at her.”

This year, in addition to great films and notable filmmakers is the “Film, Food, and Wine Weekend.” The shindig, which made its debut two years ago, will kick off the 10-day festival March 27 with a film and an aphrodisiac-themed food tasting paired with a selection of wines.

Celebrity guests include Food Network sensation and master Iron Chef Cat Cora, along with the “founding father of fusion cooking,” Norman Van Aken of New World Cuisine. Enzian and Eden Bar’s executive chef, Josh Oakley, will be cooking too as well as Steven Rujak, Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress; Kathleen Blake, Urban Flats; Kevin Fonzo, K Restaurant Wine Bar; David Noss, Harmoni Market; and Charles Szasz, Good 2 Go Gourmet.

Saturday is equally decadent. Cora and Oakley will cook up a sampling of Southern/Hellenic-infused cuisine. Cora will also fill the audience in on her personal story of becoming Food Network’s first and only female Iron Chef. Sunday’s activities include a poolside afternoon at The Grand Bohemian, with soul-stirring foods of the American South.

Tiedtke says the “Film, Food, and Wine Weekend” has only added to the festival’s success. In its infancy, the festivaldrew crowds of about 5,000. “At that point, I was interested in planning events, parties, things like that,” she recalls. “So I came along to pitch in and help the Enzian.” Tiedtke took a lead role in the Enzian in the mid-1990s after the family of her husband, Philip, purchased the Enzian. “My sister-in-law imagined it, dreamt it up, found the location, built the building and opened it,” she says. “Enzian, the way it looks, the name, the culture is all due to her.”

Now, more than 20,000 cinephiles flock to the homegrown festival. Looking back, Tiedtke says, “I found the place fascinating and haven’t left since.”