Winner of the Fipresci Prize, François Chalais Award, Grand Jury Prize, and Queer Palm, there is little doubt that Robin Campillo’s “Bpm (Beats Per Minute)” was an absolute smash at Cannes this spring. The film is now adding to the buzz that has been building by screening at the Toronto International Film Festival and New York Film Festival, and for the rest of us, a new trailer is here to let us in on the acclaimed drama.
Continue reading ‘Bpm’ Trailer: Feel The Rhythm Of History In This Cannes Winner at The Playlist.
Continue reading ‘Bpm’ Trailer: Feel The Rhythm Of History In This Cannes Winner at The Playlist.
- 10/5/2017
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
The bond between two sisters should never be underestimated, but even the tightest bonds can be tested with the prospect of fame and glory. Rebecca Zlotowski’s new film “Planetarium” follows two sisters (Natalie Portman and Lily-Rose Depp) who believe they possess the ability to communicate with the dead. While they’re performing in pre-war Paris, they encounter a visionary French producer that wants to put them on screen. Watch the trailer for the film below. (Note: It doesn’t contain subtitles for the French, but much of it is in English and it’s still worth a look.)
Read More: ‘Planetarium’: Natalie Portman and Lily-Rose Depp Get Dreamy in First Poster
The film is the third feature from Rebecca Zlotowski. She previously directed “Belle Épine,” about a young girl struggling with the death of her mother, which won the Louis Delluc Prize for Best First Film in 2010, and “Grand Central,...
Read More: ‘Planetarium’: Natalie Portman and Lily-Rose Depp Get Dreamy in First Poster
The film is the third feature from Rebecca Zlotowski. She previously directed “Belle Épine,” about a young girl struggling with the death of her mother, which won the Louis Delluc Prize for Best First Film in 2010, and “Grand Central,...
- 8/25/2016
- by Vikram Murthi
- Indiewire
Three years ago, rising filmmaker Rebecca Zlotowski made quite a statement with "Grand Central." The moody, semi-apocalyptic romance starring Tahar Rahim and Léa Seydoux won the François Chalais Award at the Cannes Film Festival and noted her as a talent to watch. Now the filmmaker is readying her third effort, "Planetarium," and the first look has arrived. Read More: Cannes Review: 'Grand Central' Weaves A Lyrical Tale Of Love And Radiation Around Tahar Rahim & Léa Seydoux Starring the intriguing lead duo of Natalie Portman and Lily-Rose Depp, the film takes place in the '30s and follows a pair of sisters who possess the supernatural ability to connect to ghosts. Uh, yeah, that sounds pretty great, and given Zlotowski's penchant for visuals and atmosphere it could be great stuff. With two films having already screened at Cannes, I'd expect Zlotowski's third to walk down the red carpet this spring as well.
- 1/6/2016
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
While "Son Of Saul" might not have walked away with the Palme d'Or at Cannes, László Nemes didn't leave the Croisette empty-handed. His Holocaust drama took the Fipresci prize, François Chalais Award, and Grand Prize of the Jury, and rolling into the awards season as Hungary's official selection, it's a big Oscar contender. And on top of all that, it boasts an interesting approach. Read More: Review: Visceral Hungarian Holocaust Drama 'Son Of Saul' Presented in Academy ratio, and playing out almost in real time, the film eschews music and goes for long takes in depicting the story of Saul Ausländer (Géza Röhrig), a Hungarian Jewish prisoner forced to assist in the Nazis machinery of large scale exterminations. But when Saul discovers the body of a young boy, he takes on the seemingly impossible task of trying to rescue the corpse, so it can be given a proper Jewish burial.
- 11/19/2015
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
“La Jaula de Oro” which translates to “The Golden Cage” now goes under the title “The Golden Dream”. The film, repped by Films Boutique, has sold widely. In U.S. it was acquired by HBO, but this week it is playing in L.A. at the TCM Chinese and Cinepolis Pico Rivera in East L.A. If you want an extra special treat, you will see it. It will also open Friday, September 4 at Village East Cinema in NYC and in DC at Cinema Pop-Up after Sept 11th.
Watch the Trailer / Showtimes and Tickets
Q&A with filmmaker Fri 9/4, Sat 9/5, Sun 9/6 at the 7pm show.
It will continue through more cities before HBO puts it on cable. It has won awards at every festival screening, starting with Cannes 2013 where it played in Un Certain Regard and won A Certain Talent Prize for the ensemble and the Gillo Pontecorvo Award and François Chalais Award - Special Mention for the strength of the visual aspect, the violence of truth and its emotional intensity. It won 9 Ariel Awards, the Mexican equivalent to the Oscar.
“La Jaula” transcends the usual depiction of young immigrants taking La Bestia through Central America and illegally entering the United States. After “El Norte”, “Sin Nombre” and “Mary Full of Grace”, we have become inured to this long festering problem of immigration. However, this poetic yet realistic and heartbreakingly beautiful depiction of three teenagers (one is a girl) from the slums of Guatemala traveling to the U.S. in search of a better life is pure heart. On their journey through Mexico they meet Chauk, an Indian from Chiapas who doesn’t speak Spanish. Traveling together in cargo trains, walking on the railroad tracks, they form bonds that create the magic of this film.
The beauty of every shot is proof that Diego Quemada-díez was a cinematographer before this debut directorial tour de force.
Diego was interviewed at the premiere by Ian Bernie, festival programmer for Bombay and the New Orleans Film Festivals, former director of the renowned Lacma film program.
Diego:
The social reality in Latin America requires cinema to be deeply engaged with the world as it is. I am interested in making films firmly rooted in our contemporary society.
True realism has it all: fantasy and reason, suffering and utopia, the happiness and pain of our existence. I want to give voice to migrants – human beings who challenge a system established by impassive national and international authorities by crossing borders illegally, risking their own lives in the hope of overcoming dire poverty.
This film is not a documentary, rather it is a fiction based on reality, reenacting it from a place of authenticity and integrity. We constructed the narrative and poetics of this odyssey from the testimony of hundreds of migrants and from the personal sentiments of each and every person who participated in the creative process.
As we identify with Juan and Chauk, we depart from our own daily lives and embark on a grand emotional adventure that delivers us to profound discovery – a journey dispelling the notion that happiness awaits us in a distant place, a journey offering reflection on the borders that divide nations, a journey towards awareness of what separates us as human beings.
We made this adventure in the hope of deconstructing those conventions that imprison us so we can reinvent our own reality. My dream is that these boundaries that separate us dissolve, allowing us to board another train.
One whose destination doesn’t matter, a train whose passengers all know our all existence is interconnected, a train whose obstacles inspire us to celebrate our existence with respect and conscience that transcends nationalities, races, classes and beliefs.
The words of a Mexican man named Juan Menéndez López, spoken just before boarding a moving cargo train with seven of his companions, became the intention I wanted to communicate with the film, “You learn a lot along the path. Here, we are all brothers. We all have the same need. What’s important is that we learn to share. Only in this way can we move ahead, only in this way can we reach our destination, only a united people can survive. As human beings, there is no place in the world where we are illegal.”
Once you have the intention it acts like a magnet, the film starts speaking and we follow it. But to articulate an idea on film we need to do it thru actions, characters, conflict. A metaphor can help us articulate the idea.
In the painting called American Progress from Manifest Destiny, the unquestioned western model of "Progress" or "Civilization" spreads through the land. Then I discovered that behind migration there is a territorial conflict, still current in America. Two ways of looking at the world, with very diferent belief systems, still clashing.
So I thought "I will tell the story of the conflict of two cultures", a story of ‘Cowboys and Indians’ through the clash between a Tzotzil Indian and a mixed race Guatemalan who believes in the Western model. They have completely opposite views of the world, one more materialistic and mental, the other more grounded, more in touch with his soul, his feelings. Throughout the story there is a transformation of the protagonist due to the Indian, not the other way around as the western societies usually expect.
I wanted to question our model of "Progress".
What if it is the western model that needs to change and not the indigenous way?
The opening ten minutes were without words.
Diego: Show me, don’t tell me.
The ending seven minutes themselves are incredible, filmed in a cold, dehumanized Colorado meat-packing warehouse where our hero ends his journey, transformed within himself.
Diego: He was alone; migrants have a lot of loneliness. Many testimonies I gathered ended in ‘We were 15 when we left and none of us arrived’ or ‘one of us arrived’. Very few make it and I wanted to convey this.
A migrant starts the journey looking for the gold (for the money) and as soon as he/ she arrives is trapped due to current legislation. Many pay a high price to get to the U.S. For many it becomes a trap.
Tell us about the genesis of this project.
Diego: I spent seven years researching the story, finding locations, speaking with migrants, gathering their testimonies that the screenplay is based on.
In the production itself, I followed Ken Loach’s techniques, filming in chronological order, without the actors knowing what would happen next. That way they have a life experience instead of acting. I would read them the script five minutes before we shot. We would do this every day, for every scene and based on their words I would rewrite it on the set.
Tell us more about your technique for shooting this film.
Diego: We worked with over 600 migrants in this movie and many people from the villages we passed by. We incorporated our actors into each location surrounded by real people and real locations, then we just filmed like a documentary, becoming an observer of what was happening on front of us. I tried to get the best from fiction and the best from documentary: Dramatic structure, to be able to reenact events instead of talking about them, working with real people, real locations, showing contemporary events that speak about issues of our time.
The hero’s internal journey is a metaphor of our own life and our death. Each of us in our own journey of life meets obstacles; we fall, we stand up, we learn things, we grow or we give up. We are never the same when we arrive at the destination where we believed our dreams would be fulfilled.
I believe we can learn a lot from migrants, from their extreme odyssey. They are people who risk their lives to help their loved ones. They are heroes so I wanted to tell their story through an epic poem.
On a deeper level, I talk of my own life through others. Like twenty years ago when my mother died and I had to keep going. Things happen to you but you go on, you continue however you can. Migrants do that; some people stumble and fall in the journey and still they keep going as best as they can.
How did you find the migrants?
Diego: In regards to the extras in the film, the casting crew would arrive three days before we arrived at each location, so when we got there we could include migrants and people from the villages.
How was this film financed?
Diego: Through a Mexican tax incentive. That is why there are so many movies now being made in Mexico. Last year 140 films. Each very different.
Biography
Born in the Iberian peninsula, Diego has lived in the American continent for the past two decades as nationalized Mexican. His first job in the film industry was in 1995, in Ken Loach's film “Land and Freedom” as a camera assistant to the director of cinematography. A year later, he migrated to the U.S. where he continued his career in film. His graduation film at the American Film Institute (AFI) as writer/director/Dop, “A Table is a Table”, won the Best Cinematography award given by the American Society of Cinematographers (Asc).
He has collaborated as camera operator with directors Spike lee, Alejandro Gonzalez-iñarritu, Tony Scott, Fernando Meirelles, among others, as he wrote and directed his own short films and documentaries. In 2006 he premiered his second short film “I Want to Be A Pilot” at the Sundance Film Festival. The film played at over 200 festivals and won over 50 awards, including Audience Award at La Mostra Sao Paulo Film Festival, Special Mention at the Amiens Film Festival.
That same year he directed in Mexico his short documentary “La Morena”, that premiered at Morelia Film Festival in 2007. In 2010 he won one of the scholarship awarded by Cinéfondation, which enabled him to participate in the Cannes Film Festival Atelier workshop with his first long-feature film, “La Jaula de Oro”. As we said above, the film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in Un Certain Regard’s Official Selection and won Un Certain Talent Award and The Gillo Pontecorvo Award and François Chalais Special Mention Award. In its Mexican premiere at the Morelia Film Festival, the film won three awards: Audience Award, Best First Film and Press Guerrero Award. As a Director he has won Best Director at Vladivostock Ff, Best New Director at the Chicago Ff, Best Director at Thessaloniki Ff, Best Director at Havana New York Ff, Best Director at Luis Buñuel Calanda Ff in Spain, Best Director from Satjavit Ray Foundation at the London Ff and Jean Renoir Award in France. It also won Best First Film in Lima, La Habana, República Dominicana and Best Film in Mumbai, Mar de Plata,Thessaloniki, Zurich.
It won nine Ariel Awards from the Mexican Film Academy, including Best Film, Best First Film and Best Original Screenplay, as well as Best Iberoamerican Film at the Fenix Iberoamerican Awards held in Mexico City. Up to now the film has received over 80 awards.
As a writer, aside from his screenplays, he has also written a poetry book called I “Dreamed I Found My Octogonal Room”.
More information on the film below:
"La Jaula de Oro" (The Golden Dream)
A film by Diego Quemada-Diez (Mexico/Spain, 102 min. In Spanish and Tzotzil with English subtitles)
Opens Friday, September 4 Village East Cinema 181-189 Second Avenue (at 12th Street) New York City, (212) 529-6998
Watch the Trailer / Showtimes and Tickets
Q&A with filmmaker Fri 9/4 and Sat 9/5 at the 7pm show.
The most awarded Mexican film in history -with over 80 international accolades- Diego Quemada-Diez's acclaimed debut feature "La Jaula de Oro" tells the story of three teenagers from the slums of Guatemala travel to the Us in search of a better life. On their journey through Mexico they meet Chauk, a Tzotzil kid from Chiapas who doesn’t speak Spanish. Travelling together in cargo trains, walking on the railroad tracks, they soon have to face a harsh reality.
Watch the Trailer / Showtimes and Tickets
Q&A with filmmaker Fri 9/4, Sat 9/5, Sun 9/6 at the 7pm show.
It will continue through more cities before HBO puts it on cable. It has won awards at every festival screening, starting with Cannes 2013 where it played in Un Certain Regard and won A Certain Talent Prize for the ensemble and the Gillo Pontecorvo Award and François Chalais Award - Special Mention for the strength of the visual aspect, the violence of truth and its emotional intensity. It won 9 Ariel Awards, the Mexican equivalent to the Oscar.
“La Jaula” transcends the usual depiction of young immigrants taking La Bestia through Central America and illegally entering the United States. After “El Norte”, “Sin Nombre” and “Mary Full of Grace”, we have become inured to this long festering problem of immigration. However, this poetic yet realistic and heartbreakingly beautiful depiction of three teenagers (one is a girl) from the slums of Guatemala traveling to the U.S. in search of a better life is pure heart. On their journey through Mexico they meet Chauk, an Indian from Chiapas who doesn’t speak Spanish. Traveling together in cargo trains, walking on the railroad tracks, they form bonds that create the magic of this film.
The beauty of every shot is proof that Diego Quemada-díez was a cinematographer before this debut directorial tour de force.
Diego was interviewed at the premiere by Ian Bernie, festival programmer for Bombay and the New Orleans Film Festivals, former director of the renowned Lacma film program.
Diego:
The social reality in Latin America requires cinema to be deeply engaged with the world as it is. I am interested in making films firmly rooted in our contemporary society.
True realism has it all: fantasy and reason, suffering and utopia, the happiness and pain of our existence. I want to give voice to migrants – human beings who challenge a system established by impassive national and international authorities by crossing borders illegally, risking their own lives in the hope of overcoming dire poverty.
This film is not a documentary, rather it is a fiction based on reality, reenacting it from a place of authenticity and integrity. We constructed the narrative and poetics of this odyssey from the testimony of hundreds of migrants and from the personal sentiments of each and every person who participated in the creative process.
As we identify with Juan and Chauk, we depart from our own daily lives and embark on a grand emotional adventure that delivers us to profound discovery – a journey dispelling the notion that happiness awaits us in a distant place, a journey offering reflection on the borders that divide nations, a journey towards awareness of what separates us as human beings.
We made this adventure in the hope of deconstructing those conventions that imprison us so we can reinvent our own reality. My dream is that these boundaries that separate us dissolve, allowing us to board another train.
One whose destination doesn’t matter, a train whose passengers all know our all existence is interconnected, a train whose obstacles inspire us to celebrate our existence with respect and conscience that transcends nationalities, races, classes and beliefs.
The words of a Mexican man named Juan Menéndez López, spoken just before boarding a moving cargo train with seven of his companions, became the intention I wanted to communicate with the film, “You learn a lot along the path. Here, we are all brothers. We all have the same need. What’s important is that we learn to share. Only in this way can we move ahead, only in this way can we reach our destination, only a united people can survive. As human beings, there is no place in the world where we are illegal.”
Once you have the intention it acts like a magnet, the film starts speaking and we follow it. But to articulate an idea on film we need to do it thru actions, characters, conflict. A metaphor can help us articulate the idea.
In the painting called American Progress from Manifest Destiny, the unquestioned western model of "Progress" or "Civilization" spreads through the land. Then I discovered that behind migration there is a territorial conflict, still current in America. Two ways of looking at the world, with very diferent belief systems, still clashing.
So I thought "I will tell the story of the conflict of two cultures", a story of ‘Cowboys and Indians’ through the clash between a Tzotzil Indian and a mixed race Guatemalan who believes in the Western model. They have completely opposite views of the world, one more materialistic and mental, the other more grounded, more in touch with his soul, his feelings. Throughout the story there is a transformation of the protagonist due to the Indian, not the other way around as the western societies usually expect.
I wanted to question our model of "Progress".
What if it is the western model that needs to change and not the indigenous way?
The opening ten minutes were without words.
Diego: Show me, don’t tell me.
The ending seven minutes themselves are incredible, filmed in a cold, dehumanized Colorado meat-packing warehouse where our hero ends his journey, transformed within himself.
Diego: He was alone; migrants have a lot of loneliness. Many testimonies I gathered ended in ‘We were 15 when we left and none of us arrived’ or ‘one of us arrived’. Very few make it and I wanted to convey this.
A migrant starts the journey looking for the gold (for the money) and as soon as he/ she arrives is trapped due to current legislation. Many pay a high price to get to the U.S. For many it becomes a trap.
Tell us about the genesis of this project.
Diego: I spent seven years researching the story, finding locations, speaking with migrants, gathering their testimonies that the screenplay is based on.
In the production itself, I followed Ken Loach’s techniques, filming in chronological order, without the actors knowing what would happen next. That way they have a life experience instead of acting. I would read them the script five minutes before we shot. We would do this every day, for every scene and based on their words I would rewrite it on the set.
Tell us more about your technique for shooting this film.
Diego: We worked with over 600 migrants in this movie and many people from the villages we passed by. We incorporated our actors into each location surrounded by real people and real locations, then we just filmed like a documentary, becoming an observer of what was happening on front of us. I tried to get the best from fiction and the best from documentary: Dramatic structure, to be able to reenact events instead of talking about them, working with real people, real locations, showing contemporary events that speak about issues of our time.
The hero’s internal journey is a metaphor of our own life and our death. Each of us in our own journey of life meets obstacles; we fall, we stand up, we learn things, we grow or we give up. We are never the same when we arrive at the destination where we believed our dreams would be fulfilled.
I believe we can learn a lot from migrants, from their extreme odyssey. They are people who risk their lives to help their loved ones. They are heroes so I wanted to tell their story through an epic poem.
On a deeper level, I talk of my own life through others. Like twenty years ago when my mother died and I had to keep going. Things happen to you but you go on, you continue however you can. Migrants do that; some people stumble and fall in the journey and still they keep going as best as they can.
How did you find the migrants?
Diego: In regards to the extras in the film, the casting crew would arrive three days before we arrived at each location, so when we got there we could include migrants and people from the villages.
How was this film financed?
Diego: Through a Mexican tax incentive. That is why there are so many movies now being made in Mexico. Last year 140 films. Each very different.
Biography
Born in the Iberian peninsula, Diego has lived in the American continent for the past two decades as nationalized Mexican. His first job in the film industry was in 1995, in Ken Loach's film “Land and Freedom” as a camera assistant to the director of cinematography. A year later, he migrated to the U.S. where he continued his career in film. His graduation film at the American Film Institute (AFI) as writer/director/Dop, “A Table is a Table”, won the Best Cinematography award given by the American Society of Cinematographers (Asc).
He has collaborated as camera operator with directors Spike lee, Alejandro Gonzalez-iñarritu, Tony Scott, Fernando Meirelles, among others, as he wrote and directed his own short films and documentaries. In 2006 he premiered his second short film “I Want to Be A Pilot” at the Sundance Film Festival. The film played at over 200 festivals and won over 50 awards, including Audience Award at La Mostra Sao Paulo Film Festival, Special Mention at the Amiens Film Festival.
That same year he directed in Mexico his short documentary “La Morena”, that premiered at Morelia Film Festival in 2007. In 2010 he won one of the scholarship awarded by Cinéfondation, which enabled him to participate in the Cannes Film Festival Atelier workshop with his first long-feature film, “La Jaula de Oro”. As we said above, the film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in Un Certain Regard’s Official Selection and won Un Certain Talent Award and The Gillo Pontecorvo Award and François Chalais Special Mention Award. In its Mexican premiere at the Morelia Film Festival, the film won three awards: Audience Award, Best First Film and Press Guerrero Award. As a Director he has won Best Director at Vladivostock Ff, Best New Director at the Chicago Ff, Best Director at Thessaloniki Ff, Best Director at Havana New York Ff, Best Director at Luis Buñuel Calanda Ff in Spain, Best Director from Satjavit Ray Foundation at the London Ff and Jean Renoir Award in France. It also won Best First Film in Lima, La Habana, República Dominicana and Best Film in Mumbai, Mar de Plata,Thessaloniki, Zurich.
It won nine Ariel Awards from the Mexican Film Academy, including Best Film, Best First Film and Best Original Screenplay, as well as Best Iberoamerican Film at the Fenix Iberoamerican Awards held in Mexico City. Up to now the film has received over 80 awards.
As a writer, aside from his screenplays, he has also written a poetry book called I “Dreamed I Found My Octogonal Room”.
More information on the film below:
"La Jaula de Oro" (The Golden Dream)
A film by Diego Quemada-Diez (Mexico/Spain, 102 min. In Spanish and Tzotzil with English subtitles)
Opens Friday, September 4 Village East Cinema 181-189 Second Avenue (at 12th Street) New York City, (212) 529-6998
Watch the Trailer / Showtimes and Tickets
Q&A with filmmaker Fri 9/4 and Sat 9/5 at the 7pm show.
The most awarded Mexican film in history -with over 80 international accolades- Diego Quemada-Diez's acclaimed debut feature "La Jaula de Oro" tells the story of three teenagers from the slums of Guatemala travel to the Us in search of a better life. On their journey through Mexico they meet Chauk, a Tzotzil kid from Chiapas who doesn’t speak Spanish. Travelling together in cargo trains, walking on the railroad tracks, they soon have to face a harsh reality.
- 9/4/2015
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Filmmaker was in post production on comedy Aquatic Effect.
Icelandic-French filmmaker Solveig Anspach died on Friday (Aug 7), aged 54, after a battle with cancer.
The Iceland born writer-director was a graduate of La Femis in Paris.
Her fictional debut feature was 1999’s Haut les Coeurs!, which was Cesar nominated. The director, who had been diagnosed with cancer at the time, told the fictional story of a pregnant musician who is told she has cancer (played by Karin Viard, who won a Cesar for the role).
Anspach’s 2003 film Stormy Weather, about a young psychiatrist who becomes fascinated by a young woman who refuses to speak, screened in Cannes Un Certain Regard.
Her 2012 film, Queen of Montreuil, won the Lina Mangiacapre Award in Venice Days and the audience award at the Reykjavik International Film Festival.
She was in post-production on her latest film Aquatic Effect (L’effet Aquatique), which was intended as the final film in an offbeat comedy...
Icelandic-French filmmaker Solveig Anspach died on Friday (Aug 7), aged 54, after a battle with cancer.
The Iceland born writer-director was a graduate of La Femis in Paris.
Her fictional debut feature was 1999’s Haut les Coeurs!, which was Cesar nominated. The director, who had been diagnosed with cancer at the time, told the fictional story of a pregnant musician who is told she has cancer (played by Karin Viard, who won a Cesar for the role).
Anspach’s 2003 film Stormy Weather, about a young psychiatrist who becomes fascinated by a young woman who refuses to speak, screened in Cannes Un Certain Regard.
Her 2012 film, Queen of Montreuil, won the Lina Mangiacapre Award in Venice Days and the audience award at the Reykjavik International Film Festival.
She was in post-production on her latest film Aquatic Effect (L’effet Aquatique), which was intended as the final film in an offbeat comedy...
- 8/10/2015
- by wendy.mitchell@screendaily.com (Wendy Mitchell)
- ScreenDaily
★★★☆☆Rebecca Zlotowski's Grand Central (2013) arrives in UK cinemas this week after bagging the Prix François Chalais at Cannes last year. Zlotowski again anchors her film with the naturalism of Léa Seydoux after working together on her debut film, 2010's Belle Épine. With the backdrop of a nuclear power plant in Austria, Grand Central focuses on the plant's workers and their itinerant existence in a campsite close by. Into this closed community comes Gary (Tahar Rahim), a young man looking for a fresh start and a surrogate family. Taken under the wing of Gilles (Olivier Gourmet) and Toni (Denis Ménochet), Gary appreciates the dignity of hard labour and the comradeship of his fellow colleagues.
- 7/16/2014
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
Timbuktu , a French-Mauritanian drama film directed by Abderrahmane Sissako won the Ecumenical Jury Prize. The Prize of the Ecumenical Jury (French: Prix du Jury Ecuménique) is an independent film award for feature films at the Cannes Film Festival established in 1974. The Ecumenical Jury is one of three juries at the Cannes Film Festival, along with the official jury and the Fipresci jury. The award was created by Christian film makers, film critics and other film professionals. The objective of the award is to "honor works of artistic quality which witnesses to the power of film to reveal the mysterious depths of human beings through what concerns them, their hurts and failings as well as their hopes." The ecumenical jury is composed of 6 members, who are nominated by Signis for the Catholics and Interfilm for the Protestants. Signis and Interfilm also appoint ecumenical juries at other film festivals, including the Berlin International Film Festival, the Locarno International Film Festival, the Montreal World Film Festival and the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
It also won the The Francois Chalais Prize, given at the Cannes Film Festival since 1997. It was created to pay tribute to the French journalist and film historian François Chalais, under the auspices of his wife Mei Chen. It rewards a film dedicated to the values of life affirmation and of journalism, and indeed this award also highlights the presence of journalists at Cannes itself.
Timbuktu , the only African film in Competition, was produced by Sylvie Pialat at Paris-based Les Films du Worso. Pialat, who is behind last year’s Alain Guiraudie’s Un Certain Regard winner Stranger by the Lake, won the 2014′s Toscan du Plantier award for France’s best producer.
Timbuktu is being sold internationally by Le Pacte who is also distributing it in France with TV5Monde. Cohen Media picked up U.S. rights in Cannes. Le Pacte and Cohen Media Group previously worked together on Claude Lanzmann’s documentary feature The Last of the Unjust. This film’s central theme is very much a part of the same fabric as Lanzmann’s concern about the coldly calculated and yet random acts of intolerance as perpetuated by an arrogantly confident group of “supremacists”.
“The film touched people’s souls … the film remained with people throughout the festival and caused bidding wars in many countries,” said Camille Neel, head of international sales for Le Pacte.
Timbuktu was also acquired for Canada (Axia), U.K. and Ireland (Artificial Eye), Germany and Austria (Arsenal), Italy (Academy Two), Spain (Golem), Portugal (Midas), Sweden (Folkets Bio), Norway (As Fidalgo), Benelux (Cinéart), Switzerland (Trigon), former Yugoslavia countries (McF), Greece (Weird Wave), Turkey, South Africa, Mexico, Colombia and Brazil.
The gazelle running, running from the guns of jihadists whose jeep races the beautiful animal with the idea of tiring it out is a metaphor for the foreign jihadists aiming to exhaust, if not to kill, the ancient, beautiful peaceful Islamic community living in Timbuktu and the surrounding desert and its oases.
The beauty and the pain of watching a people being exhausted by the mean-spirited unholy jihad acting in the name of Religion was sometimes painful to sit through. And yet one craves the nourishment offered by the warm love of the people which can never totally be conquered (one hopes!).
Away with the stereotypical visions of an Africa wracked by poverty and pain, and in with the vision of a particularly well-developed, ancient and efficient society of people still able to function in the natural setting where they have thrived for thousands of years. During the 2012 takeover of Timbuktu in northern Mali by Islamist militants, thugs who hate the West and yet use every western invention – from automobiles, Kalashnikov rifles, and smart phones to destroy fellow Islamic followers in the name of destroying the West itself are shown in a coldly accurate light.
The misinterpretation of the law, the arrogance of jihadists inflamed the audience as its sees the meek being disenfranchised from their own earth. Again the problem of evil and how to resist create questions left unanswered.
It also won the The Francois Chalais Prize, given at the Cannes Film Festival since 1997. It was created to pay tribute to the French journalist and film historian François Chalais, under the auspices of his wife Mei Chen. It rewards a film dedicated to the values of life affirmation and of journalism, and indeed this award also highlights the presence of journalists at Cannes itself.
Timbuktu , the only African film in Competition, was produced by Sylvie Pialat at Paris-based Les Films du Worso. Pialat, who is behind last year’s Alain Guiraudie’s Un Certain Regard winner Stranger by the Lake, won the 2014′s Toscan du Plantier award for France’s best producer.
Timbuktu is being sold internationally by Le Pacte who is also distributing it in France with TV5Monde. Cohen Media picked up U.S. rights in Cannes. Le Pacte and Cohen Media Group previously worked together on Claude Lanzmann’s documentary feature The Last of the Unjust. This film’s central theme is very much a part of the same fabric as Lanzmann’s concern about the coldly calculated and yet random acts of intolerance as perpetuated by an arrogantly confident group of “supremacists”.
“The film touched people’s souls … the film remained with people throughout the festival and caused bidding wars in many countries,” said Camille Neel, head of international sales for Le Pacte.
Timbuktu was also acquired for Canada (Axia), U.K. and Ireland (Artificial Eye), Germany and Austria (Arsenal), Italy (Academy Two), Spain (Golem), Portugal (Midas), Sweden (Folkets Bio), Norway (As Fidalgo), Benelux (Cinéart), Switzerland (Trigon), former Yugoslavia countries (McF), Greece (Weird Wave), Turkey, South Africa, Mexico, Colombia and Brazil.
The gazelle running, running from the guns of jihadists whose jeep races the beautiful animal with the idea of tiring it out is a metaphor for the foreign jihadists aiming to exhaust, if not to kill, the ancient, beautiful peaceful Islamic community living in Timbuktu and the surrounding desert and its oases.
The beauty and the pain of watching a people being exhausted by the mean-spirited unholy jihad acting in the name of Religion was sometimes painful to sit through. And yet one craves the nourishment offered by the warm love of the people which can never totally be conquered (one hopes!).
Away with the stereotypical visions of an Africa wracked by poverty and pain, and in with the vision of a particularly well-developed, ancient and efficient society of people still able to function in the natural setting where they have thrived for thousands of years. During the 2012 takeover of Timbuktu in northern Mali by Islamist militants, thugs who hate the West and yet use every western invention – from automobiles, Kalashnikov rifles, and smart phones to destroy fellow Islamic followers in the name of destroying the West itself are shown in a coldly accurate light.
The misinterpretation of the law, the arrogance of jihadists inflamed the audience as its sees the meek being disenfranchised from their own earth. Again the problem of evil and how to resist create questions left unanswered.
- 6/1/2014
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
By Kim Palacios
hollywoodnews.com: Though Kristen Stewart’s career outside of “Twilight” has focused on independent films, her most recent projects have yet to win critical acclaim. With the exception of “Welcome to the Rileys” (which was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance), neither “The Yellow Handkerchief” nor “The Runaways” has been up for critical awards. Yet, last week, Ion Cinema named “On The Road” as one of 20 films predicted for screening at the Cannes Film Festival in 2011. Given Brazilian director Walter Salles’ track record at Cannes, the prediction might just be right.
Salles’ “Linha de Passe” and “The Motorcycle Diaries” were each nominated for the Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or, the highest prize awarded to competing films. At the 2004 festival, “The Motorcycle Diaries” won the François Chalais Award (which rewards the film most dedicated to the values of life affirmation and of journalism) and the...
hollywoodnews.com: Though Kristen Stewart’s career outside of “Twilight” has focused on independent films, her most recent projects have yet to win critical acclaim. With the exception of “Welcome to the Rileys” (which was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance), neither “The Yellow Handkerchief” nor “The Runaways” has been up for critical awards. Yet, last week, Ion Cinema named “On The Road” as one of 20 films predicted for screening at the Cannes Film Festival in 2011. Given Brazilian director Walter Salles’ track record at Cannes, the prediction might just be right.
Salles’ “Linha de Passe” and “The Motorcycle Diaries” were each nominated for the Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or, the highest prize awarded to competing films. At the 2004 festival, “The Motorcycle Diaries” won the François Chalais Award (which rewards the film most dedicated to the values of life affirmation and of journalism) and the...
- 5/31/2010
- by Kim Palacios
- Hollywoodnews.com
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.