AFC-related activities

From the family of films about the Knights of the Round Table, I choose… The Green Knight! A new variation on the quest theme, that sheds light on the lesser-known character of Sir Gawain (played by Dev Patel, the British actor of Indian descent, who had his breakout role with Slumdog Millionaire). Andrew Droz Palermo, Californian cinematographer, seconds his faithful collaborator, David Lowery (Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, A Ghost Story), in filming this mysterious story that draws as much from the universe of chivalry as from fantasy.

Cinematographer Xavier Dolléans, AFC, partnership with director David Hourrègue is long-standing, and the two have worked together on several series, such as "Cut" (France Ô) and "Skam" (France TV Slash). The duo has built a certain reputation on the back of the success of these programmes, and they attacked their first big-budget project with the same production crew. This project is a new, six-episode adaptation of Zola’s novel Germinal, shot with a 12-million-Euro budget. This series will be broadcast on public television by France Télévisions and is expected to be one of the public service broadcaster’s main attractions of October 2021. This is also a major event for Xavier, who has been selected in competition at Toruń for Best Television Series Image. (FR)

A rare filmmaker, director Jane Campion, is back 12 years after her last film, Bright Star. This time, she has chosen to adapt Thomas Savage’s novel The Power of the Dog, a rivalry between two brothers in which isolation and nature — a ranch in Montana in the 1920s — play a preponderant role. Following in the footsteps of Stuart Dryburgh, ACS, ASC, and Greig Fraser, ACS, ASC, it is now the turn of young DoP Ari Wegner, ACS, to accompany the Australian 1994 Oscar-winning director. Produced by Netflix, The Power of the Dog will be released online on the company’s platform on 1^st December.

For her first film, filmmaker Ameen Nayfeh chose to plunge her viewers into the Kafkaesque experience of daily life in Palestine. Separated from his wife and children by 200 meters (she lives and works on the other side of the wall, in Israel), Mustafa has no choice but to communicate with them every evening by a childish game of turning the lights on and off. But when his son is the victim of an accident, he tries to gain access to the Jewish State by any means possible. Elin Kirschfink, AFC, SBC, was the cinematographer of this audacious testimony, which already received the Audience Award at the Venice Film Festival this year. (FR)

After Moonlight, in 2016, which won the Oscars for best film and best screenplay, director Barry Jenkins decided to adapt Colson Whitehead’s 2017 Pulitzer Prize winning "Underground Railroad" for his first series. He teamed up again with James Laxton, ASC, whom he has known since they were both students at the University of Tallahassee, Florida. Both filmmakers explored a very different universe from that of their prior films, one that mixes the authenticity of a period film (the story takes place in the slave era in the middle of the 19^th Century) with fantasy. The story follows the flight of Cora, a young slave being pursued by one of her master’s employees, through several states. A series broadcast on Amazon Prime, which has been heaped with praise since its release online. (FR)

Lucie Baudinaud is a young French cinematographer who has recently signed off on many shorts and feature films, both documentary and fiction. Noteworthy amongst her recent projects is Elie Grappe’s Olga, in competition at the Cannes Critics’ Week, and which will be released in theatres on Wednesday. Today at Camerimage, she is presenting Les Enfants Terribles, a documentary by Ahmet Necdet Cupur. (MC)

Stéphane Kuthy, SCS, is a Franco-Swiss cinematographer who lives and works in Zurich. He has shot over fifteen fiction features and about twenty documentary features with the likes of Bettina Oberli, Emily Atef, Georges Gachot and, recently, Mano Khalil, a Swiss director of Kurdish origin. The latter’s film Neighbors is Kuthy’s entry to this year’s Camerimage festival, in the Cinematographer’s Debuts Competition. The film is a reconstitution of life in a Kurdish village on the border between Turkey and Syria in the early 1980s. Mixing humour and drama, this is the story of a young boy’s life in this rapidly changing country divided by an arbitrary border. (FR)

In a career spanning over five decades, gaffer Jim Plannette has participated in crafting the lighting of such iconic films as Young Frankenstein (1974), E.T. (1982), The Fisher King (1991), and Magnolia (1999). Apart from collaborating multiple times with influential cinematographers like John A. Alonzo, Sven Nykvist, László Kovács, and John Toll, Plannette has been a key creative partner to Steven Soderbergh ever since the director began serving as his own DP, from 2000’s Traffic up to his latest movie, KIMI. Fresh from wrapping Lisa Azuelos’s I Love America, shot by Léo Hinstin, AFC, the 81-year-old gaffer reflects here on his cinematic journey and the technological advances that have accompanied it. (YT)

Following our “micro edition” in 2021, held online, and two years of waiting for its visitors and expositor associate members, the AFC is pleased to announce that its Micro Salon will once again be held at the Parc Floral de Paris from Thursday 20 January to Friday 21 January 2022. Two days for friendly meetings and technical discussions around the tools used to create film images.

During the 74^th Cannes Film Festival, we have published 34 written or video interviews (20 are in English, others in French), in which directors of photography speak about their work on the selected movies. Here are the links allowing you to read or watch each of them.

Always surprising and prolific, Belgian cinema sends this year to the Critics’ Week a very nice portrait of a young woman played by Adèle Exarchopoulos. Rien à foutre (which was called Carpe Diem when it was filmed so as not to scare people!) is also a dive into the ruthless world of low cost airlines. (FR)

Belgian Cinematographer Virginie Surdej, SBC, won the Magritte for Best Image for Insyriated, by Philippe Van Leeuw, AFC. Amine Messadi, TSC, Tunisian cinematographer, signed the pictures of Sortilège, the feature film by Tunisian Alaeddine Slim, presented at the Directors’ Fortnight in 2019. After working together on Razzia and Much Loved, it is for a third collaboration with Nabil Ayouch that the two cinematographers meet again to film Casablanca Beats (Haut et fort), presented in the Official Competition at the 74^th Cannes festival. (BB)

Fiona Braillon, SBC, began her career in cinematography together with Rachel Lang, a young Belgian director. After graduating from the IAD (Institute of Broadcasting Arts) in 2010, Fiona Braillon signed in 2016 the cinematography of Rachel Lang’s first feature film, Baden Baden, then, four years later, that of My Legionnaire. This film was selected at the Directors’ Fortnight of this 74^th edition of the Cannes Film Festival. (BB)

Shot over the course of 36 days in Moscow, Petrov’s Flu is a very strange film, which keeps even the most stalwart viewers in its grip and sometimes brings them to the point of malaise. Kirill Serebrennikov’s latest work is a 2.5-hour-long nightmare in a timeless Russia. Vladislav Opelyants, RGC, his faithful cinematographer, just won the 2021 CST Award of the Technical Artist for this film.

With her 2^nd film, French director Julia Ducournau had to top the sensation she made at the 2016 Festival with Grave. She did indeed, with Titane, an even more radical work in which the main character’s trajectory borrows as much from the horror genre as from romance. Ruben Impens, SBC, who was also the DP on Grave, shares with us his method for "giving the viewer a good punch in the face". (FR)

With Serre-moi fort, his eighth feature film, Mathieu Amalric returns to the Croisette for the third time, where he won best director in 2010 for Tournée. Christophe Beaucarne, AFC, SBC, the faithful DP to many directors, has worked on almost all Amalric’s feature films. He has created a discreet and minimalistic lighting for this melodrama and has selected shots that are in perfect alliance with the plot. Serre-moi fort is part of the Cannes Première selection. (BB)

Jacques Audiard is what one might call a habitué of the Cannes Film Festival. Besides his Golden Palm Award for Dheepan, in 2015, he has presented most of his films at Cannes. This year, he is offering audiences a study based around the love relationships of four young people of different backgrounds, but who all live in the same neighborhood in Paris. A new choral film photographed in black-and-white by Paul Guilhaume, AFC. (FR)

Moneyboys is a first Taiwanese film, selected in Un Certain Regard at Cannes, which paints a sensitive and elegant portrait of a young Chinese male prostitute. Director CB Yi and cinematographer Jean-Louis Vialard, AFC, decided to work using long takes in a series of different locations, each of which was very carefully chosen, to literally build the ambience and the visual identity of this film. (FR)