Most recent articles
9 February 2020
Q&A with Anthony Nti, dir. Da Yie - Clermont 2020 Grand Prize
by Abla KandalaftA foreigner in Ghana gets an assignment from his gang to recruit kids for a risky job that will take place later that evening. He finds Prince and Matilda, two lively kids and good friends, and plans to hand them over to the gang. After spending the day with them, he starts to question his decision and how it will affect their future.
Shot on a very low budget, Anthony Nti’s Da Yie (good night)’s style is uncannily reminiscent of City of God and indeed the Brazilian film is one of his main (...) Continue Reading »
9 February 2020
Q&A with Farah Nabulsi, dir. The Present - Clermont 2020 Audience Award
by Abla KandalaftOn his wedding anniversary, Yusef and his young daughter set out in the West Bank to buy his wife a gift. Between soldiers, segregated roads and checkpoints, how easy would it be to go shopping?
British-Palestinian Farah Nabulsi is relatively new to filmmaking, which can come as a surprise given just how adept she is at provoking the most rousing emotions in her viewers by telling a fairly simple story. The audience award that she deservedly won in Clermont clearly highlights just how (...) Continue Reading »
7 February 2020
Q&A with Lars Vega, co-dir. Väntan På Döden / Awaiting Death - Canal+ AwardClermont 2020
by Elise LoiseauA son arrives at the hospital to watch over his father’s death bed. When the son wants one last nice moment, his father would rather find out what to do with the two opened cans of mustard.
Awaiting Death is a deceptively simple and sombre short. Through minor exchanges and limited dialogue, the directors manage to convey a nuanced and very human relationship with characteristic deadpan humour, getting a delicate balance in tone just right.
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How did you come up with (...) Continue Reading »
7 February 2020
Q&A with Thomas Vernay, dir. Miss Chazelles - Clermont 2020
by Elise LoiseauClara and Marie are rival competitors for the title of Miss Chazelles-sur-Lyon. As Marie is declared winner of a local beauty pageant, tension escalates between both girls’s families and supporters.
Miss Chazelles, Aesthetica 2019’s Best Drama award-winner, is a warm, irreverent and somewhat terrifying look at the word of regional pageants and the resulting drama. Despite the absurdity of the situation and its more ridiculously over-the-top behaviour, Thomas Vernay’s portrayal is never (...) Continue Reading »
7 February 2020
Q&A with Gabrielle Stemmer, dir. Clean With Me (After Dark)
by Abla KandalaftThrough a very clever and revealing video montage, Gabrielle Stemmer not only sheds light on somewhat depressing phenomenon of cleaning videos on YouTube but silently and subtly unearths the loneliness and neuroses that often underpin it, in a society in which women are homemakers and the home is their gilded cage.
How did you discover the “world” of YouTube?
I’ve been a heavy YouTube user for seven or eight years now – it’s TV for me. I’d say that from the beginning I’ve been watching stuff (...) Continue Reading »
7 February 2020
Q&A with Yves Gellie, dir. L’Année du robot - Clermont 2020
by Elise LoiseauAt the crossroads of art and science, this film centers on human beings and robots as their artificial counterparts. Like a series of archival documents detailing the first contacts and exchanges between human beings and a robot, the film studies cognitive dissonance, a minuscule, mysterious relational space lying between them both.
A thoroughly exhaustive but at moments frankly alarming - the growth of emotional tech - look at our ever-changing relationships with robots. Yves Gellie’s (...) Continue Reading »
7 February 2020
Q&A with Mehdi Benallal, dir. Madame Baurès - Clermont 2020
by Abla KandalaftA stroll through the present-day municipalities of Vincennes and Saint Mandé, once home to Madame Baurès, a woman and Communist. The filmmaker’s voice-over recounts the memory of the story that Raymonde had entrusted to him. (Cinéma du Réel)
This is a very moving film about memory and legacy, as we are given a glimpse into Madame Baurès’s life as it is now, in a world that seems to have forgotten and openly turned its back on everything she spent most of her life fighting for. Through this (...) Continue Reading »
6 February 2020
Q&A with Ioseb “Soso” Bliadze, dir. Tradition - Clermont 2020
by Elise LoiseauTwo German tourists travel around Georgia and encounter the country’s culture, traditions and some more conservative attitudes.
A brave film in which the director’s passion for the subject and anger at the prejudices faced by many gay people in his home Country certainly come to the fore. An interesting and timely festival run, ahead of the general release of Georgian filmmaker Levan Akin’s And Then We Danced, a film centered on the growing feelings between two gay students of a Georgian (...) Continue Reading »
5 February 2020
Q&A with Noël Fuzellier, dir. Mars Colony - ClermontFF 2020
by Abla KandalaftLogan is a sci-fi obsessed awkward teenager who often finds himself the butt of his friends’ jokes. One day, he’s visited by an older man who claims to be him, 39 years from now and asks him to join him on a mission to save humankind.
A sci-fi enthusiast himself, Noël Fuzellier’s passion for space travel and Mars in particular shines through this optimistic, unpretentious yet ambitious short. He deftly mixes low-key family dynamics typical of French cinema with zany space travel sequences. (...) Continue Reading »
5 February 2020
Q&A with Ariane Labed, dir. Olla - ClermontFF 2020
by Elise LoiseauOlla responded to an advertisement on an Eastern women dating site. She moves in with Pierre, who lives with his old mother. But nothing happens as planned.
First time director but seasoned actress Labed brings us a visually distinctive look at sexuality and modern relationships.
Trailer
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Olla’s character is particularly interesting. Far from being a victim, she reinvents herself, constantly surprising the viewer. How did you create this character?
I wanted to make a (...) Continue Reading »
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