With her first film, entitled Swallos, director Carlo Mirabella-Davis portrays a young woman suffering from a compulsive eating disorder. But this is also the story of a young woman searching for freedom and truth in a very artificial world. American cnematographer Katelin Arizmendi invites us backstage…
After he had worked for Jean-Claude Larrieu as his assistant operator, Larrieu encouraged Romain Alary to work on a project as a cinematographer. Since the early 2010s, he has worked on the cinematography of several advertisements and clips for brands such as Hermès, Cartier, Fendi, Renault and Honda. "Give it Up", by San Zhi, is his first music video, created in partnership with his cousin Antoine Lévi. A very personal project entirely shot with a small crew. (FR)
Since the opening of Camerimage 2019, in Toruń (Poland), on November 9th, we have published every day written or filmed interviews with directors of photography about their work on a film selected in one or other of the sections of the Festival, in both French and English. Here are the links to read or watch each of them in English.
The great Italian cinematographer discusses examples of films from throughout his extremely prestigious and varied career from the perspective of his relationship with their production designers. Amongst the films discussed: Michael Apted’s Nell, Sam Raimi’s The Quick and the Dead, and Michael Mann’s Insider and Manhunter.
The partner of directors such as Peter Greenaway (Murder by Numbers, The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover), Andrew Niccol (Gattaca, S1m0ne), and Oliver Stone (Alexander, World Trade Center), Dutch production designer Jan Roelfs is at Camerimage 2019 to receive the special annual prize for Unique Visual Sensitivity. He tells us about his perspective on working with cinematographers on projects and shares a few memories from the shooting of his greatest films…
Tristan Chenais works in both France and the UK, where he studied at the National Film and TV School. It is there that he met director Richard Hall, with whom he has been working ever since on advertisements and music videos. "New Start", for singer Moss Kena, is one of them, produced by Riff Raff Films, one of the most prestigious advertising and music video firms in London.
By beginning his film with a very funny story (Pope Francis tries to make an airplane reservation himself, but the travel agent hangs up on him when he says his name), Fernando Meireiles gives his story a humourous tone. This is also a film that describes the intimacy of papal life with a great deal of realism, which gives way to moments of great warmth on screen between Anthony Hopkins (Joseph Ratzinger) and Jonathan Price (Jorge Mario Bergoglio). Cesar Charlone, the Brazilian filmmaker’s faithful collaborator, is at Camerimage to present this Netflix film.
After their first success with a film whose meticulous recreation of a 17th-century community caused a sensation (The Witch, 2015), the duo composed of Robert Egger (director) and Jarin Blaschke (cinematographer) has taken on another, even more concentrated historical fantasy project. Namely, the meeting between two men (Robert Pattinson and Wilhelm Dafoe) alone on an island where they are the caretakers of a lighthouse in the early 19th century. The film was shot in Nova Scotia and has very dense visuals evocative both of silent film and period fantastic engravings. The film was presented in the Directors’ Debuts competition at Camerimage 2019.
During his visit to Camerimage to present the second film adaptation of Stephen King’s bestselling novel (It: Chapter 2), Peruvian cinematographer Checco Varese, ASC, discussed with us his unique way of approaching the shooting of this film. In no particular order, he discussed his passion for doing things directly on set as well as his vision of the profession in the age of special effects. With his calm and clever smile, welcome to the chef’s kitchen!
With Joker, Todd Phillips has confirmed his great talent as a director, a writer, and a producer, which was already evident on the Very Good Trip franchise (2009) or the incredible Project X (2012). This film was created in an atmosphere of mutual trust, which makes daring experimentation possible: the producer was his actor/director friend Bradley Cooper, his editor was Jeff Groth (Project X), and the cinematography was by Lawrence Sher, who has been his faithful companion since the start of his career. Joaquin Phoenix’s performance has already been acclaimed several times (likely opening the pathway to his first Oscar), and the film has enjoyed enormous success with audiences since its release, unleashing polemics and passions in an international social context which sometimes makes reality into fiction. Lawrence Sher, ASC, joins us for an in-depth interview on the creation of this classic yet unique film about insanity.
Teenage girl Tati lives at the very top of a flight of stairs in a favela in Rio de Janeiro with her mother, who is almost young enough to be her older sister. Her father is the former local crime boss and has been in prison since before she was born. But one day, he returns. For her first film, Laura Merians has created an image full of strength and colors at the heart of a classic tale of redemption whose visual narration elegantly takes over from the literary narration of the script. The strong and endearing characters round off this dizzying dive into contemporary Brazil, where violence has become totally normalized and is a part of the daily lives of millions of people.
For the purposes of HBO’s teen series “Euphoria”, Hungarian cinematographer Marcell Rév (Jupiter’s Moon, White God) went down a visual path that mixes the realism of dramatic situations with a sometimes-baroque stylization of the lighting. The result on the screen is the recreation of an entire universe, that of young people in 2019, whose thirst for life, whose free and sometimes destructive passions, are not so dissimilar to a famous Californian portrait painted by director Nicholas Ray in 1955… (FR)
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 18th 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 3rd-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 19th 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)
Cinematographer Elin Kirschfink, SBC, recently joined the AFC. Marie Spencer, one of her two AFC sponsors (the other being Caroline Champetier), makes the usual introduction below and welcomes her arrival.
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 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.
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)