AFC-related activities

Born in Brazil in 1979, and a citizen of the world, having lived in the USA, England, Portugal and France, Andre Szankowski, AFC, AIP, also has Polish roots (his father). For his first invitation to attend Camerimage, he will present Cosmos, the new film by Franco-Polish director Andrzej Żuławski. Get to know this trilingual cinematographer with an international career.

In a filmed interview, cinematographer Sturla Brandth Grøvlen, DFF, discusses his work on the film Hrútar (Rams), by Grímur Hákonarson, presented in Camerimage’s Main Competition.

Jean-Marie Dreujou, AFC, will participate in this year’s Camerimage festival as a member of the jury. He will also be the only French – and AFC – representative in the international competition for the Golden Frog with Wolf Totem, a film by Jean-Jacques Annaud. This interview was conducted with him just before he left for Poland. (FR)

Thanks to the initiative of Alain Coiffier, for the second year in a row, AFC cinematographers were invited to participate in the San Sebastian Festival. This invitation allowed us to attend the screenings of the Student Film section (“14^th International Film Student Meeting”) in order to choose films that will be screened at the Grand Action Cinema from 9-11 February 2016, as part of Caméflex-AFC, which will be held this year on the theme of “The Transmission of Knowledge”.

Welcome to LCA (Lights Camera Action), our new associated member, and to its "boss" Nick Shapley. Although their operational base is in London, we have run into each other, over the years, in multiple places in the World where Nick and his team have shown their innovative "lighting solutions", supplying a wide range of film and TV equipment including LED and traditional lighting, grip equipment, power supplies, consumables and more. Last week end, they were running a booth at the 5^th Oslo Digital Cinema Conference, where the attendees were invited to test different equipment.

Eden, screened out of competition at Camerimage 2014, is one of the first cinematographic attempts at capturing the “rave party” scene and the birth of the French Touch musical movement in the 1990s and its ensuing international success. This conversation with Denis Lenoir, AFC, ASC, focuses on this sociologically very “French” biopic whose main character was mostly inspired by director Mia Hansen-Løve’s own brother. (FR)

Because Volker Schlöndorff’s Diplomacy, cinematography by Michel Amathieu, was recently selected to compete in the “European Panorama” section of the 22^nd Camerimage Festival, we are publishing below an interview in which the director of photography discusses his work on the film, which was released in cinemas on 5 March 2014.

When I was a camera assistant, I remember watching the dailies at the end of a day of shooting. I would take my scooter or my car, go to Epinay, go up the stairs that led to the screening room, where I would wait with a knot in my stomach for the room to go dark and see the raw images, with no sound, where I would see the scenes we had shot the previous day, and my relief when we had gotten it right, and the desire to melt into the darkness when we hadn’t. Those are my first memories of Éclair.

Three exciting events have just happened concerning British (and francophone) cinematographer Peter Suschitzky, ASC, who attended the Cannes Film Festival to present Matteo Garrone’s new film Tale of Tales, to serve as a member of the jury of the Critics’ Week, and to teach a Master Class under the aegis of Sony available on the Internet on 21 May. David Cronenberg’s loyal partner discusses the creation of this fantasy film inspired by traditional Italian folk tales. (FR)

Selected for the Marseilles FID Festival, the documentary directed by Caroline Champetier on Bruno Nuytten was screened on 5 July. Director and cinematographer Caroline Champetier, AFC, discusses this sensitive portrait of a legendary cinematographer who brutally decided to end his career after twelve continuous years of work on some of the greatest French films of the 1980s. (FR)

Glynn Speeckaert shares his time between feature-length French-language and English-language films, but he also shoots many advertisements all over the world. Amongst his best-known films are his collaboration with Xavier Giannoli (A l’origine and soon-to-be-released, Marguerite), Koen Mortier (Ex drummer) and Guillaume Galienne on the comedy that won the 2014 César award for best film (Me, Myself, and Mum). His name will soon be on the film posters of Fred Grivois’ Through the Air, starring Reda Kateb and Ludivine Sagnier, as well as Moonwalkers, the first feature-length film of advertisement director Antoine Bardou Jacquet. (FR)

His first feature film, See How They Fall, was screened at Cannes, and three of Jacques Audiard’s subsequent films were selected to be in the Official Competition: A Self-Made Hero, Best Screenplay in 1996, A Prophet, Grand Jury Prize in 2009, and Rust and Bone, in 2012. For his seventh feature film, Dheepan, which is in the Official Competition of the 68^th Cannes Film Festival, Jacques Audiard chose an unknown aspiring actor to play the lead role, like Tahar Rahim and Reda Kateb in A Prophet. (BB)

Below, you will find a list of links for all of the articles that we published in English during the 68^th Cannes Film Festival. Cinematographers discuss their work with us on films featured in one of the Festival’s selections. These interviews are listed in the order in which the films are screened at the Festival.
The AFC expresses its heartfelt thanks to the CNC and its associate members — Aaton-Digital, Arri, Binocle, Cinemage, Digimage, Eclair Group, K 5600 Lighting, Lee Filters, Leica, Nikon, Panavision, RVZ, Sony, Technicolor, Thales Angénieux, Transvideo, and TSF Group — for their support, thanks to which these daily updates from Cannes were made possible.
The AFC also thanks Pierre-William Glenn, Angelo Cosimano, and the whole CST team for their warm welcome and for making it possible for us to be present at the Festival.

While for many the name Slawomir Idziak, PSC remains associated with the visuals of his compatriot Kristof Kieslowski’s 1993 film Three Colours: Blue, the Polish cinematographer has since enjoyed a distinguished international career (alongside Andrew Niccol on Gattaca, Ridley Scott on Black Hawk Down, and David Yates on Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix). He now returns to the forefront of the Cannes scene with A Tale of Love and Darkness, Israeli actress Natalie Portman’s highly anticipated adaptation of the eponymous novel by Amos Oz. (FR)

After the international success of Blue Ruin in 2013, a great revenge movie that was self-produced, directed, and filmed by cinematographer and director Jeremy Saulnier, Cannes is about to discover the world premier of Green Room, his latest thriller. This story, which portrays a group of Punks and its involvement with a gang of Skinheads, is highly anticipated at the Directors’ Fortnight. American cinematographer Sean Porter is responsible for the film’s visuals.

Cinematographer Luca Bigazzi and Paolo Sorrentino together form one of the most successful tandems in Italian cinema today. Winners of over sixty awards, including the Oscar for Best Foreign Film with The Great Beauty in 2014 – which, although it was screened at Cannes in 2013, was ignored by the jury – the two men meet again this year at Cannes with their movie La giovinezza (Youth). This film portrays two octogenarians played by Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel and was shot between Switzerland and Italy. (FR)

Yves Cape, AFC, SBC, became known as a cinematographer by filming Humanité, directed by Bruno Dumont. He then continued to work with the director all the way through Outside Satan. He has also worked with Claire Denis, Martin Provost, Cédric Khan, Guillaume Nicloux, and designed the lighting on Patrice Chéreau’s latest film, Persecution. (BB)

If Danish cinematographer Kasper Tuxen’s resume is above all filled with prestigious advertising credits (Louis Vuitton featuring David Bowie, Hennessy, BMW…), he has also already lit two feature films (Beginners by Mike Mills and M. Blash’s The Wait). After first working with director Gus Van Sant on a television series (Boss), he is currently responsible for the images of The Sea of Trees, a mysterious forest tale of survival in which Oscar-winning actor Matthew McConaughey rubs shoulders with the most American of Japanese actors, Ken Watanabe.