festivals

Rodrigo Prieto, who first visited Poland’s Camerimage fest in 2000 to take the top prize for Amores perros and later filmed Brokeback Mountain and The Wolf of Wall Street, says his cinematography in Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman presented challenges that pushed him into new territory.

In late 2018, the AFC, with ENS Louis-Lumière Film School, performed a comparative test of sixty-six lenses from thirty-three different spherical and anamorphic series. We are organizing a blind screening of the results on Tuesday 12 November at 16:00 at the Cinema City, Screening Room N° 12, and Friday 15 November at 13:30 at the Cinema City, Screening Room N° 6.

Denis Lenoir, AFC, ASC presents the great film lens test which is about be shown in Camerimage for the first time abroad. 33 lenses tested, an unique opportunity to enter the lensing of a scene.

Gilles Porte, AFC is an operator who likes changing visual universes on each project. For example, in 2017, on The Royal Exchange [1], by Marc Dugain, a film set in the French royal court during the 18^th century, or the following year on Budapest [2], by Xavier Gens, a much more festive contemporary comedy. For this 2019 edition of Camerimage, he is presenting Who Do You Think I Am? [3], the latest film by Safy Nebbou, starring Juliette Binoche (released in Paris in February 2019). This is a film about the lies and the dangers of social networks which has been a hit abroad [4] since its release (ranked 3^rd-highest French film by ticket sales abroad). (FR)

For his latest film, director Roman Polanski decided to create an extremely historically accurate adaptation of a major event of the late 19^th century: the Dreyfus Affair. Despite the very large number of characters and the frequent shifts between different time periods, the Franco-Polish filmmaker shows his excellence as a director and editor with this simple and captivating story. At the camera, once again, his Polish countryman Paweł Edelman officiates (his sixth film with Polanski, starting with The Pianist in 2002). A film in glacial tones, shot in large part in the authentic locations of the story. This film will open the new EnergaCamerimage 2019 Festival in Toruń. (FR)

Today, how do we train the directors of photography of tomorrow? An appropriate answer cannot be reached without the opinion of those principally concerned. That’s why Pascal Lagriffoul, director of photography, AFC, and teacher at the school, has created a questionnaire aimed at understanding the rapport DOP have with their tools and the technique.

Today, how do we train the directors of photography of tomorrow? A round table and discussion organized, on Monday, november 11^th, by Louis-Lumière Film School (France) amongst directors of photography.

Angenieux and its team will be at the 2019 Camerimage edition in Toruń (Poland), November 9/16.

The FilmLight team will be present at the 27^th edition of Camerimage, with two seminars, Monday 11 and Tuesday 12, where it will be question of visual adaptation and digital images development.

Leitz is this year again partner of Camerimage taking place in Torun from November 9^th to 16^th 2019. You can find us on our stand and discover the new zomm lenses, the new Large Format set of prime lenses, and you will have several opportunities to meet us.

Panasonic will be in attendance at Camerimage 2019 in Toruń, Poland, from November 9^th to16^th.

The closing ceremony of the 40^th-annual Manaki Brothers Festival was held on Saturday, 21 September 2019 in Bitola (Republic of Northern Macedonia), in the Great Hall of the local Palace of Culture. The jury, which was presided over by Ed Lachman, ASC, presented the golden Camera 300 award to Hélène Louvart, AFC, for her work on The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmão, by Karim Ainouz. Due to her inability to be present in person, the award was accepted on her behalf by Eric Gautier, AFC. Yorgos Arvanitis, AFC, GSC, received the Golden Camera 300 for Life Achievement Award.

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)

During the 72^nd 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.

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)

By choosing to make a screen adaptation of Franz Jägerstätter’s letters from prison (he was a young Austrian peasant and conscientious objector against Nazism), the director of Days of Heaven has delivered another three-hour-long film about activism and loyalty in which the editing forms the work itself.

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)

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 58^th Critics’ Week. (BB)