festivals

For her first feature-length film as director, photographer Vanessa Filho was lucky enough to be able to convince Marion Cotillard to play the role of a young alcoholic mother who is neglectful of her seven-year-old daughter. Guillaume Schiffman, AFC, and his Easy Rig, shot this project from the eyelevel of a child. (FR)

Some cinematographers work with French directors as much as they do with foreign ones. Antoine Héberlé, AFC, is one of them. Throughout his career, which he began in 1993 with Laurence Ferreira Barbosa on Normal People are Nothing Special, he has worked with Laetitia Masson, Alain Guiraudie, Stéphane Briée, and also with Moroccan director Faouzi Bensaïdi, Palestinian director Hany Abu Assad, and Israeli directors Edgar Keret and Shira Geffen. This year, he is at Cannes for his work on his first Syrian film, My Favourite Fabric by Gaya Jiji, in selection in Un Certain Regard. (BB)

Engaged in a fierce battle against the industrialization of his beloved island, Halla, with his bow and arrows and his sticks of dynamite, could be compared to John Rambo (First Blood) in her mastery of guerrilla warfare against the system… With the exception of only one thing, however: she is an elegant chorus director from Reykjavik and her combat fatigues is his traditional Icelandic wool jumper.

Director Jia Zhangke is one of the most critically acclaimed Chinese director and the one best-loved by international audiences. He has already presented a number of films at Cannes (I Wish I Knew, A Touch of Sin, Mountains May Depart). He entrusted Eric Gautier, AFC, with the cinematography of his last feature-length film. Eric Gautier is the cinematographer of France’s greatest directors (Arnaud Desplechin, Olivier Assayas, Alain Resnais, Patrice Chéreau) and also shot Into the Wild, On the Road, and Hotel Woodstock for Ang Lee. He is accompanying Jia Zhang-ke on his walk up the red carpet at Cannes this year, where the film Ash Is Purest White is in official competition. (BB)

After having shot his last film in France, Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi decided on Spain for his latest film, a family thriller that is reminiscent both of classical tragedy and westerns. A family behind closed doors in a village of the sierra outside of Madrid, set amongst grape harvests, passions, and jealousies. The great Spanish (and French-speaking) cinematographer José Luis Alcaine is opening this year’s Competition at Cannes with this authentic firework display of actors and cinematography. (FR)

With seventeen films filmed by its members and screened on the Croisette (all sections), the AFC will once again be well-represented at the Cannes Film Festival this year. It will also be present in the jury of the Caméra d’Or award and by its daily newsletter. Over a dozen AFC cinematographers have already indicated that they will attend the Festival.

At the Cannes Film Festival 2018, for the 57^th edition of "La Semaine de la Critique", CW Sonderoptic-Leica is once again sponsoring the "Leica Ciné Discovery Price" and welcomes you from May 10 to 17 on the Nespresso beach.

Camerimage has been a regular haunt of Denis Lenoir, AFC, ASC, for some time now. In attendance this year as a member of the jury for the Polish Film competition, here, he shares his impressions after returning from the 25^th annual festival.

We were once there. A week of meetings, films, discussions with DoPs at Camerimage. I returned home in a particular state of fatigue, leaving the hotel for Poznan Airport at 2:30 a.m., just after the last party of the week, alongside a director from Bombay. That was my last meeting of the week, and like all the encounters during the week, we understood one another immediately! We discussed images, cameras, shootings...

On Thursday, 16 November, Caroline Champetier, AFC, attended the conference given at the Opera Nova by Vittorio Storaro, AIC, ASC. The cinematographer was discussing the physiology of colour with Woody Allen’s film Wonder Wheel as his guiding thread. Here, she summarizes some of the main points of his speech.

Arri Academy’s HDR seminar was well-attended and impressively-outfitted. All the students and young DoPs in attendance at Camerimage came to this event. The session is scheduled from noon to 4 p.m., and let’s hope that the hundreds of young people queued up outside will be able to get in at some point.

The Leica team organized a special meeting with the attendees of the festival in order to discuss its new Thalia range of lenses, intended to be used on large-format cameras (like the Arri Alexa 65 or the RED Monstro). In order to illustrate what we’re talking about, nothing is worth a few images taken on the spot.

Cinematographer Claudio Miranda, ASC, who was recently contacted by Sony to try out its new Venice camera, was a member of the competition jury at Camerimage. He took advantage of the opportunity to teach a Master Class and to share his vision of light, in which the relationship to nature and to camera work seem to be highly important.

Peter Bernaers colour graded the series “Transferts,” cinematography by Pascal Lagriffoul, AFC, whose first episode was selected to compete at the Camerimage Festival in the Television Series’ Pilots competition. In this article, he discusses the colour timing and finishing options for the series.

For its second incursion into science-fiction after “Trepalium,” a television series it produced in the past, Arte France decided to hire Patrick Benedek and Claude Scasso to write a six-episode season on the theme of immortality and on transferring from one body to another. The series will be broadcast as of 16 November and the cinematography of the first season was directed by Pascal Lagriffoul, AFC. The first episode was selected at Camerimage in the Television Series’ Pilots competition. (FR)

At Poznan airport, I met Pascal Lagriffoul, AFC, who, like me, was left without luggage. The tricky Lufthansa must know that in less than 40 minutes of transit in Munich it cannot forward baggage from one plane to another because as a passenger, we have to walk kilometers of corridors, running like lunatics, hoping to "catch" the connecting flight. But at first, she pretends that there is no problem.

During the closing ceremony of the 25^th annual Camerimage Festival, held on Saturday 18 November 2017 in the Grand Theatre of the Opera Nova of Bydgoszcz (Poland), the jury, presided by filmmaker Michael Apted, revealed the names of the winners. The Golden Frog went to Ildikó Enyedi’s film On Body and Soul, cinematography by Máté Herbai, HSC, the Silver Frog, to Loveless, by Andrei Zyvagintsev, cinematography by Mikhail Krichman, RGC, and the Bronze Frog to First They Killed My Father, by Angelina Jolie, cinematography by Anthony Dod Mantle, DFF, BSC, ASC.

The Bydgoszcz Film Festival, called Camerimage, is known for the many great filmakers that gather every year. This event is also visited by other people. These are aspiring artists from all around the world.