AFC’s Conversations

At the last Cannes Film Festival we started a series of interviews with directors of photography who were not members of the AFC.

I had the pleasure of meeting Lubomir Bakchev at the special screening, organized jointly with the CST, of A Secret by Claude Miller, photographed by Gérard de Battista.

I knew that the release of The Secret of the Grain (La Graine et le mulet) by Abdellatif Kechiche was imminent and I asked Lubomir to see a preview. I then suggested to Lubomir that we extend our conversation with the present interview.

If I had one wish to make for the AFC, it is that interviews, like the one of Gérard de Battista by Wilfrid Sempé, become a means of strengthening relationships and kinship between members, and of reinforcing that most important subject for the future of our association: the image of a film.

Enjoy the interview. Eric Guichard

On November 7^th, 2007 at the Espace Cardin, Paris 8^th, the AFC and CST organized an event entitled “From Digital to 35mm” based around Claude Miller’s film, A Secret. A discussion with the film’s director of photography, Gérard de Battista followed the screening. Wilfrid Sempé wished to continue this discussion by talking with Gérard who “went digital” once again on a Claude Miller film.

Josée Deshaies is a Quebecker. Having studied Art History in Italy, she started training in Montreal as a second assistant cameraman, before photographing documentaries and short films. Through her encounter with Bertrand Bonello, she switched to full length with Quelque chose d’organique (Something Organic) in 1998. Since then, she has photographed such films as Royal Bonbon by Charles Najman, Cache cache by Yves Caumon, Les Invisibles by Thierry Jousse as well as Bertrand Bonello’s Tiresia and Le Pornographe (The Pornographer). Two of the films selected for this year’s edition of the Director’s fortnight were photographed by Deshaies: Avant que j’oublie (Before I Forget) by Jacques Nolot and La Question humaine (The Human Question) by Nicolas Klotz. (FR)

Upon graduating from the Femis in 1999, Celine Bozon made her debut with Jean-Paul Civeyrac on Fantômes, a low-budget film freely shot on video with a tiny crew. The result, feature film Fantômes, was given a theatrical release. Then came Le Doux amour des hommes (Man’s Gentle Love) and Toutes ces belles promesses (All the Fine Promises). At the same time, she shot medium-length Mods with her brother Serge Bozon, then two films by Tony Gatlif (Exils (Exiles) and Transylvania). In 2007, two of the films she photographed were selected in the Quinzaine des réalisateurs: her brother’s second feature La France and Lebanese Danielle Arbid’s Un homme perdu (A Lost Man).

Having worked for over 20 years as a gaffer to the greatest American cinematographers of the 1970s (Bruce Surtees, Owen Roiszman, Haskell Wexler, Conrad Hall…), then 46-year-old Tom Stern started a new career as a cinematographer on Clint Eastwood’s Blood Work. His faithful collaborator since 1981 Honkytonk Man, he has photographed all of the star’s films since 2002 and subsequently won several international awards.
Four years after Mystic River, Tom Stern returns to Cannes as foreman of the CST jury.