Cannes Film Festival 2019

Du mardi 14 mai au samedi 25 mai 2019

A Tandem in Roubaix
Interview with cinematographer Irina Lubtchansky about her work on "Roubaix, une lumière", a film by Arnaud Desplechin

The story of fidelity between Arnaud Desplechin and Irina Lubtchansky is being written here with their fourth collaboration on Roubaix, une lumière, which is in Official Competition at Cannes this year. The cinematographer recently finished work on the image of L’Homme fidèle, by Louis Garrel, and Julie Bertuccelli’s La Dernière folie de Claire Darling. (BB)

The 2019 Cannes Festival interviews

During the 72nd Cannes Film Festival, we have published 33 written or video interviews in French and 14 in English, 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.

Voodoo at the boarding school
Interview with cinematographer Yves Cape, AFC, SBC, about his work on Bertrand Bonello’s film "Zombi Child"

In his latest film Bertrand Bonello juggles genres and eras between ethnological documentary, historical recreation and fiction. On the one side it depicts female teenage life at a boarding school and on the other a history of Voodoo practices and slavery in Haïti. Yves Cape, AFC, SBC, lensed this unusual film in competition at the Quinzaine des réalisateurs (Directors Fortnight). (FR)

The Bartender is at the End of the Tunnel
Cinematographer Kit Fraser discusses his work on Babak Anvari’s film "Wounds"

As part of the eclectic selection in the Directors’ Fortnight this year, festivalgoers were able to discover a strange American film by Babak Anvari (Américano-iranien director) in which the fantastic cyclically appears in a rather classic plot centred on a love triangle. In the end, the mix isn’t always well-proportioned between the jumpy moments and the relationship falling apart in an apartment – New Orleans style – full of alcohol and giant cockroaches. British cinematographer Kit Frasier signed off on the visuals of this film, which follows the main character’s inexorable downward spiral. This is a Netflix film, and will soon be released on their platform. (FR)

Rebirth in Bosnia
Interview with Cinematographer Paul Guilhaume, AFC, about his work on Aude Léa Rapin’s film “Heros Don’t Die”

Cinematographer Paul Guilhaume, AFC, worked with Léa Mysius on Ava (Critics’ Week 2017, Best Cinematography award in Stokholm, 2017) and Marie Monge on Joueurs (Directors’ Fortnight 2018). He has regularly shot for documentarist Sébastien Lifshitz (Les Vies de Thérèse, Directors’ Fortnight 2016) and also Adolescentes and Sasha (to be released). He worked with Aude Léa Rapin on Heros Don’t Die, a film which mixes the genres of fiction and documentary, and which was selected in the 58th Critics’ Week. (BB)

Film for the Mayor
Interview with cinematographer Sébastien Buchmann, AFC, about his work on Nicolas Pariser’s film "Alice and the Mayor"

A graduate of the Ecole nationale supérieure Louis-Lumière with a major in Cinema, Sébastien Buchmann, AFC, has been working on both documentaries and fiction films ever since. He has worked a number of times with Dominique Marchais, who is a director of activist documentaries (La ligne de partage des eaux, Nul homme n’est une île). On the fiction side, he is the faithful associate of Valérie Donzelli, La guerre est déclarée, Mickhaël Hers, Amanda, and Nicolas Pariser, alongside whom he has just completed a new philosophic-political opus entitled Alice et le Maire (Alice and the Mayor), in selection at the Directors’ Fortnight.

Anaesthetized by colour
Dharius Khondji, AFC, ASC discusses his work on Nicolas Winding Refn’s film "Too Old To Die Young"

Held up by the night shooting of Thom Yorke’s new music video, Darius Khondji, AFC, ASC, was only able to make a quick round-trip to Cannes this year. Too late, in any case, to be able to attend the screening at the Grand Théâtre Lumière of a part of the series "Too Old To Die Young", which he and Diego Garcia shot for Nicolas Winding Refn. He was, however, able to find some time to speak with us, by phone, about this shoot in Los Angeles… (FR)

A Look on Montfermeil
Interview with cinematographer Julien Poupard, AFC, about his work on Ladj Ly’s film "Les Misérables"

Two films shot by Julien Poupard, AFC, have already won the Caméra d’or at Cannes: Party Girl, by Marie Amachoukeli, Claire Burger and Samuel Theis in 2014, and Divines, by Houda Benyamina, in 2016. Last year, he was with Pierre Salvadori’s film En liberté! at the Directors’ Fortnight. This year, he’s back with a first film, Ladj Ly’s Les Misérables, in Official Competition at the 72nd Cannes Film Festival. (BB)

Cinematographer Hélène Louvart, AFC, discusses her work on Karim Ainouz’ film “La Vie invisible”

Hélène Louvart, AFC, signed off on the image of La Vie invisible, a Brazilian film presented at Un Certain Regard 2019. A story of two sisters that takes place from the 1950s to the present time. She tells us about her working relationship with Karim Ainouz, the director, and about their shared ambition to dare to create striking visual universes, and about how they learned to modulate that ambition so as to avoid being above the story and the characters, visually speaking. (FR)

On the necessity of the gaze of the other
Interview with cinematographer Jonathan Ricquebourg, AFC, about his work on Pierre Trividic and Patrick Mario Bernard’s film “L’Angle mort”

Pierre Trividic and Patrick Mario Bernard have been directing films together since the 1980s. Their filmography reveals a taste for the strange and the fantastic, such as Le Cas Lovecraft (documentary), Dancing, L’Autre. With L’Angle mort, they offer us a cinema that engages simultaneously with political and romantic issues. We met Jonathan Ricquebourg, AFC, last year, to discuss Jean-Bernard Marlin’s vigorous film Sheherezade. Since then, he has also signed off on the image of Jean-Charles Hue’s Tijuana Bible, and is currently working with the Trividic-Mario Bernard tandem on their latest film, L’Angle mort. This film is presented by the ACID at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival.

Höfn, between the living and the dead
Director of photography Maria Von Hausswolff speaks about her work on "A White, White Day", a film by Hlynur Pálmason

Following Winter Brothers for which she earned the award for First feature film at Camerimage in 2017, the young Swedish cinematographer Maria von Hausswolff again joined forces with Icelandic director Hlynur Pálmason on a drama that portrays a former police officer mourning the loss of his wife and who brings his young daughter along on an uncertain quest into the past. Alongside the impressive Ingvar Sigurðsson (for whom the film was written), the little girl (Hlynur Pálmason’s own daughter), and a visual landscape made up of gradients of fog and rain surrounding the coastal town of Höfn (which simply means “port” in Icelandic) in the south-western part of Iceland. (FR)

Announcement of the Official Selection at the 72nd Annual Cannes Film Festival

The 72nd Annual Cannes Film Festival will take place from 14-25 May, 2019. The official selection was announced on Thursday, 18 April by Pierre Lescure, President of the Festival, and Thierry Frémaux, its General Delegate, and includes nineteen feature-length films in competition, sixteen in “Un certain regard” and eleven out of competition and in the other sessions – not to mention Cannes Classics. Eight of these films were shot, and one was directed, by AFC member cinematographers.