AFC-related activities

The 19^th annual Micro Salon, held on 8 and 9 February 2019, made a decisive change, which had been in the works for the past two to three years, and moved to the Parc Floral de Paris. There, a massive open space awaited it, which allowed for easier set-up, a design that made visiting more pleasant for attendees, and large meeting spaces where conviviality, one of our event’s hallmarks, went hand-in-hand with equipment presentation and screenings of images, the creation of which is the principal subject of interest of all in attendance.

At the 44^th Annual 2019 César Awards ceremony, it was possible to moon Robert Redford or to have a César awarded to the box-office champion by one’s own father, but it was impossible to voice a number of important questions regarding French cinema without being interrupted by a little tune…

From 20 March to 3 April 2019, the Cinémathèque française is organizing, in partnership with the AFC, a retrospective dedicated to Bruno Nuytten, cinematographer and director, through a selection of 22 films out of the 30 or so feature-length films that he lit and for the most part also shot during a fifteen-year period. This selection is complemented by three short films that he shot in the early 70s and three of the films he directed (Camille Claudel, Albert Suffers and Jim, la nuit).

As part of the events organized at the end of January and the beginning of February to provide a forum for showing off the achievements of the audio-visual and cinematography industries, the AFC is organizing two days dedicated to postproduction right before the Micro Salon. They will take place at the Forum des Images on 29-30 January and will end with a Master Class by cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel, AFC, ASC.

Wednesday, 7 November 2018, 9^th Arrondissement of Paris, 19:30
Ceremony Honoring Jean-Pierre Beauviala with a Special Award
 by the President of the ASC, Kees van Oostrum, with some AFC members in attendance. Aaton, Beauviala, these two names are inseparable from one another, a magic spell, a password on every continent and part of the vocabulary of all men and women who have chosen to make images their profession.

Jean-Pierre Beauviala, is an inventor amongst whose many creations are the Aaton cameras and Cantar recorders. He is also a consulting member of the AFC. In Paris, on Wednesday, 7 December 2018, he received a “Special Award” presented by Kees van Oostrum, President of the ASC, which honoured his exceptional contribution to the field of cinema. Accompanied by a few friends from the association, Gilles Porte, President of the AFC, addressed Jean-Pierre with the words in the following text.

We’ve all heard the saying: “Cats have nine lives.” It’s a popular myth, one that’s been around for hundreds of years — and one that even earned a reference from no less a legend than Shakespeare, who worked it into Romeo and Juliet, giving Mercutio the line, “Good King of Cats, nothing but one of your nine lives, that I mean to make bold withal, and, as you shall use me hereafter, dry-beat the rest of the eight.”

As every year for four years, the AFC gave, this Wednesday, November 14, a Master Class as part of the Festival Camerimage. As in previous years, the format of three cinematographers / speakers was preserved (each ½ hour) and in this year 2018, Céline Bozon, Gilles Porte and David Ungaro defended the colors of the AFC in front of a a large audience of young people, and under the leadership of Maestro Benjamin Bergery, Benjamin B, who, as usual, had studied and prepared his score well.

Quentin Bourdin, assistant cameraman, DIT and colour timer, a graduate of the Ecole nationale supérieure Louis-Lumière, accompanied the AFC cinematographers to London for a day of training and discussion around images and the expectations of contemporary colour timing. It was the opportunity to discover Baselight and its colour timing tools. He offers us a detailed report of the trip.

From 15-17 June 2018, Leica Camera AG celebrated the opening of the new Leitz Park, in Wetzlar (Germany) with many guests from the region and around the world. Gilles Porte and Vincent Jeannot represented the AFC, which was invited to attend, and here they recount their visit to the new complex, which is an important centre for the lens industry, combining research, art, and culture.

Dear Thierry Frémeaux, Dear Pierre Lescure, I wish to personally thank you for having made a little bit of room for me on the steps of your immense red carpet during a time of the year when Cannes becomes many peoples’ centre of gravity. Thierry, I hope that I didn’t ruffle your feathers when you mentioned Lyon’s football team to me at the top of the steps. Although I hail from Lyon, I have been a supporter of Saint-Etienne for years now and began supporting them even before I’d noticed that the colour of their jerseys was the same colour regularly used in the Seventh Art for chroma keying.

The video of Ed Lachman’s (ASC) Master Class is now online.
It was organized by the AFC in partnership with the ENS Louis-Lumière, and took place on Monday, 12 February 2018 on the school’s premises.
It was hosted by Caroline Champetier, AFC, moderated by François Reumont, and the conversation in English was interpreted by Massoumeh Lahiji.

During its last meeting, the board of the AFC decided both to admit Director of Photography Axel Cosnefroy as an active member and to admit the MovieTech and Sigma France corporations as Associate Members.

During its December 2017 meeting, the board of the AFC decided to admit the FilmLight corporation as an Associate Member. FilmLight is specialized in the development of tools that are essential to digital image making. Nathalie Durand, AFC, who, along with Antoine Roche, AFC, was FilmLight’s sponsor, introduces FilmLight below. We bid our newest Associate Member a warm welcome.

Julie Grünebaum was admitted to AFC membership in September 2017 after being sponsored by Robert Alazraki and Yves Cape. Robert Alazraki introduces her below with a few words of welcome.

Sunday, November 26^th. Back to Paris. Cold but sunny weather. Through the window I see trees loosing their leaves. Still fresh from Camerimage, I will get on the writing of the editorial of the monthly AFC Letter. The phone is ringing. A call from Rémy Chevrin. It’s a terrible and inconceivable news: our friend Matthieu Poirot-Delpech left us, taken from us brutally. I cannot believe it.

I just ended reading the balance sheet of the CNC (National Administration Center of Cinema) for 2016. The news is pretty good. French cinema reached an all-time record of 213 million admissions. It is also a world-wide industry with a production level of 283 films in 2016.

I have just heard of the death of Jeanne Moreau. I encountered her, when I was A.C on the set of Joseph Losey’s Mr Klein. I had great admiration for her, she the heroine of the French New Wave that has so much influenced my generation.