On Screen

Although he is originally from Norway, Benjamin Loeb has been based in Vancouver for a number of years, and he works in North America and Europe. He has filmed a number of feature-length films sinceı2007 (Hello Destroyer, Wintermarchen), as well as several music videos, short films, and advertising videos. His work was selected in the Directors’ Fortnight with Mandy, a strange revenge film directed by Panos Cosmatos. (FR)

Polish filmmaker Pawel Pawlikowski is back after his highly-regarded film Ida, in 2013 (Oscar for Best Foreign Film) with Cold War, a love story set to a background of music and tension between East and West. His countryman and Oscar nominee Łukasz Żal, PSC, was the director of photography, again in black and white and 1.37 aspect ratio. The film is in the Official Competition for the 2018 Golden Palm at Cannes Film Festival. (FR)

For her first feature-length film as director, photographer Vanessa Filho was lucky enough to be able to convince Marion Cotillard to play the role of a young alcoholic mother who is neglectful of her seven-year-old daughter. Guillaume Schiffman, AFC, and his Easy Rig, shot this project from the eyelevel of a child. (FR)

Some cinematographers work with French directors as much as they do with foreign ones. Antoine Héberlé, AFC, is one of them. Throughout his career, which he began in 1993 with Laurence Ferreira Barbosa on Normal People are Nothing Special, he has worked with Laetitia Masson, Alain Guiraudie, Stéphane Briée, and also with Moroccan director Faouzi Bensaïdi, Palestinian director Hany Abu Assad, and Israeli directors Edgar Keret and Shira Geffen. This year, he is at Cannes for his work on his first Syrian film, My Favourite Fabric by Gaya Jiji, in selection in Un Certain Regard. (BB)

Engaged in a fierce battle against the industrialization of his beloved island, Halla, with his bow and arrows and his sticks of dynamite, could be compared to John Rambo (First Blood) in her mastery of guerrilla warfare against the system… With the exception of only one thing, however: she is an elegant chorus director from Reykjavik and her combat fatigues is his traditional Icelandic wool jumper.

Director Jia Zhangke is one of the most critically acclaimed Chinese director and the one best-loved by international audiences. He has already presented a number of films at Cannes (I Wish I Knew, A Touch of Sin, Mountains May Depart). He entrusted Eric Gautier, AFC, with the cinematography of his last feature-length film. Eric Gautier is the cinematographer of France’s greatest directors (Arnaud Desplechin, Olivier Assayas, Alain Resnais, Patrice Chéreau) and also shot Into the Wild, On the Road, and Hotel Woodstock for Ang Lee. He is accompanying Jia Zhang-ke on his walk up the red carpet at Cannes this year, where the film Ash Is Purest White is in official competition. (BB)

After having shot his last film in France, Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi decided on Spain for his latest film, a family thriller that is reminiscent both of classical tragedy and westerns. A family behind closed doors in a village of the sierra outside of Madrid, set amongst grape harvests, passions, and jealousies. The great Spanish (and French-speaking) cinematographer José Luis Alcaine is opening this year’s Competition at Cannes with this authentic firework display of actors and cinematography. (FR)

With seventeen films filmed by its members and screened on the Croisette (all sections), the AFC will once again be well-represented at the Cannes Film Festival this year. It will also be present in the jury of the Caméra d’Or award and by its daily newsletter. Over a dozen AFC cinematographers have already indicated that they will attend the Festival.

At the Cannes Film Festival 2018, for the 57^th edition of "La Semaine de la Critique", CW Sonderoptic-Leica is once again sponsoring the "Leica Ciné Discovery Price" and welcomes you from May 10 to 17 on the Nespresso beach.

Our English friends of the BSC, like our American friends of the ASC, have an annual ritual which is unfamiliar to us, an awarding ceremony or “Awards”, celebrating the talents and the glory of the cinematography.

Camerimage has been a regular haunt of Denis Lenoir, AFC, ASC, for some time now. In attendance this year as a member of the jury for the Polish Film competition, here, he shares his impressions after returning from the 25^th annual festival.

We were once there. A week of meetings, films, discussions with DoPs at Camerimage. I returned home in a particular state of fatigue, leaving the hotel for Poznan Airport at 2:30 a.m., just after the last party of the week, alongside a director from Bombay. That was my last meeting of the week, and like all the encounters during the week, we understood one another immediately! We discussed images, cameras, shootings...

On Thursday, 16 November, Caroline Champetier, AFC, attended the conference given at the Opera Nova by Vittorio Storaro, AIC, ASC. The cinematographer was discussing the physiology of colour with Woody Allen’s film Wonder Wheel as his guiding thread. Here, she summarizes some of the main points of his speech.

Arri Academy’s HDR seminar was well-attended and impressively-outfitted. All the students and young DoPs in attendance at Camerimage came to this event. The session is scheduled from noon to 4 p.m., and let’s hope that the hundreds of young people queued up outside will be able to get in at some point.

The Leica team organized a special meeting with the attendees of the festival in order to discuss its new Thalia range of lenses, intended to be used on large-format cameras (like the Arri Alexa 65 or the RED Monstro). In order to illustrate what we’re talking about, nothing is worth a few images taken on the spot.

Cinematographer Claudio Miranda, ASC, who was recently contacted by Sony to try out its new Venice camera, was a member of the competition jury at Camerimage. He took advantage of the opportunity to teach a Master Class and to share his vision of light, in which the relationship to nature and to camera work seem to be highly important.

Peter Bernaers colour graded the series “Transferts,” cinematography by Pascal Lagriffoul, AFC, whose first episode was selected to compete at the Camerimage Festival in the Television Series’ Pilots competition. In this article, he discusses the colour timing and finishing options for the series.

For its second incursion into science-fiction after “Trepalium,” a television series it produced in the past, Arte France decided to hire Patrick Benedek and Claude Scasso to write a six-episode season on the theme of immortality and on transferring from one body to another. The series will be broadcast as of 16 November and the cinematography of the first season was directed by Pascal Lagriffoul, AFC. The first episode was selected at Camerimage in the Television Series’ Pilots competition. (FR)