On Screen

Darius Khondji, AFC, ASC, is collaborating with Woody Allen for the fifth time on Irrational Man, an official Out of Competition selection at the 68^th Cannes Film Festival. _ Having most recently worked on several period pictures—James Gray’s The Immigrant, Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris and Magic in the Moonlight, and The Devil You Know, a pilot for a series directed by Gus Van Sant—Darius admits finding great pleasure in returning to a contemporary universe.

Christophe Beaucarne, AFC, SBC, works with loyal directors who call upon his talent to make most of their films. The list of these directors, from very different worlds – including the Larrieu brothers, Anne Fontaine, Bruno Podalydès, Mathieu Amalric –, recently grew with the addition of the name of Christophe Gans. The work of Christophe Beaucarne on Beauty and the Beast was nominated for the 2015 César awards. After Mr. Nobody, The Brand New Testament, a film by Jaco Van Dormael, was selected for the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes, the opportunity for Christophe Beaucarne to make his second film with his Belgian compatriot.

Roger Deakins, BSC, ASC, is not just a legendary cameraman. He is a cinema aficionado who constantly pursues his visual research with great simplicity and enthusiasm. Although he hasn’t been awarded a golden statue in his over thirty-year-long career (despite his twelve nominations!), his close collaboration with the Cohen brothers has had a lasting impact on multiple generations of cameramen. After working with Denis Villeneuve on Prisoners two years ago, he is worked alongside him again on Sicario, one of the favorites to win the Palm d’Or at Cannes this year.

Belgian cinematographer Benoît Debie, SBC, recently worked with Wim Wenders on Every Thing Will Be Fine and with Ryan Gosling on Lost River. Now a fixture in Gaspar Noé’s world after having filmed Irreversible and Enter the Void, Benoît Debie is once again working with the director on Love, a film that has sparked lots of discussion on the “Croisette” at Cannes. This 3D sexual melodrama tells the story of a torrid love affair that contains all sorts of promises, games, and excesses, was selected for the 68^th Cannes Film Festival in the Midnight Screening.

Following the announcement of the films selected for the Official Selection at the 68^th Annual Cannes Film Festival, the Parallel Selections— the Directors’ Fortnight, the International Critics’ Week, and the ACID – have now announced the list of films that they have selected.
The cinematography of three of the selected films was done by members of the AFC.

The 68^th Annual Cannes Film Festival will take place from 13-24 May 2014.
At the usual press conference, Pierre Lescure, President of the Festival, and Thierry Frémaux, its Director General, announced the choice of seventeen feature-length films that will be In Competition for the Palme d’Or, fourteen films selected for “Un Certain Regard”, and thirteen films that will be screened “Hors Compétition”, during the Midnight Screenings and the Special Screenings.
Amongst the films chosen for the Official Selection and parallel selections, seven were filmed by Members of the AFC.

In February, the Cinémathèque Française launched its online illustrated catalogue of cinema equipment held by Cinémathèque Française and the Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée (CNC).

During the 20^th annual Prix Lumière awards, whose awards ceremony took place on Monday, 2 February 2015 in the Espace Pierre Cardin in Paris, the film Timbuktu, by Abderrahmane Sissako, cinematography by Sofiane El Fani, won the awards for best film and for best director. Cinematographer Rémy Chevrin, AFC, was awarded the CST’s Special Award for A la vie, by Jean-Jacques Zilberman.

Organized by the “Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences,” the 87^th award dinner for the Scientific and Technical Academy Awards was held on Saturday, 7 February 2015 at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills (California). In total, twenty-one awards were given out to fifty-eight different personalities from the cinema industry. Leica and Sony, associate mmbers of the AFC, were amongst those recognized.

Niels Thastum, DFF, is a Danish cinematographer who graduated from the National Film School of Denmark in Copenhagen in 2009. He works on documentaries, advertisements, and music videos, notably alongside photographer-director Casper Balslev. When Animals Dream is his first experience working on a feature-length film, directed by his fellow Dane, director Jonas Alexander Arnby. (FR)

During the closing ceremony of the 22^nd Camerimage Festival, which took place on Saturday, 22 December 2014 at the Auditorium of the Opera Nova of Bygdoszcz (Poland), the international jury awarded the Golden Frog to the film Leviathan, by Andrey Zvyagintsev, cinematography by Mikhail Krichman, RGC. The award for Best 3D Fiction Film was awarded to The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet, by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, cinematography by Thomas Hardmeier, AFC.

After working on a gangster movie written by Nick Cave, a biblical movie based on a story by Oscar Wilde, and a spy movie based on a story by John le Carré, Benoît Delhomme, AFC, just filmed the biopic dedicated to the life of Stephen Hawking and his romance with his first wife, Jane. A film by James Marsh, a British director of documentaries who received an Oscar in 2007 for Man on Wire. (F.R.)

Both of the last two productions that Steven Poster participated in were filmed in very different conditions. They are both about to be released in the United States. The first is Amityville: the Awakening, by Franck Khalfoun, the twelfth film of the series to be dedicated to America’s most famous haunted house. A horror film in the most pure tradition of the genre, alternating interiors and exteriors, with most of it shot at nighttime, of course.

Looking back at the beginnings of his career and his education, Phedon Papamichael admits that he didn’t attend a cinema school. “I was originally a photographer, and I learned to make movies on the job, by filming lots of short films using the Éclair 16 camera that I owned at the time.” Bit by bit, he went from short films to feature-length films under the guidance of Roger Corman of Concorde Pictures, for whom, beginning in 1989, he signed off on a number of low-budget B series films produced in a fortnight. At that time, he began to work with a number of his future colleagues, Raphel Sanchez, who was a key grip and later became a gaffer, Wally Pfister, who is one of his sparks, and Janusz Kaminski, who was also working as a gaffer at that time.

In a filmed interview, cinematographer Michael Seresin, BSC, discusses his philosophy and his passion for lighting, he mentions the advantages of Cameraimage’s diversity, continues with his experiences on shooting a film in digital. He misses film…, the most important thing is to tell a story.

In a filmed interview, cinematographer Nancy Schreiber discusses her experience at Cameraimage, her concerns regarding the increased accessibility of the profession and the loss of craftsmanship that this has engendered. She ends the interview with her fears regarding the loss of control over the integrity of the image from its production to the final version.

This round table, moderated by Benjamin B., brought together cinematographers Matthew Libatique, ASC and Dick Pope, BSC, Steadicam operator Thomas English, gaffer Helmut Prein, focus-puller John Bailie, and DIT Peter Marsden, in order to discuss the various steps in the work of the image team and their implications.

Seizing the opportunity of Cameraimage, Arri Rental organized the first public try-outs of its Alexa 65 camera within the framework of a workshop led by Spanish cinematographer Daniel Vilar.