FNC 2013: Uvanga

UVANGA

PRODUCTION TEAM:

Directors: Madeline Ivalu, Marie-Hélène Cousineau
Producer(s): Stéphane Rituit, Marie-Hélène Cousineau
Screenplay: Marie-Hélène Cousineau
Cast: Lukasi Forrest, Marianne Farley, Travis Kunnuk, Madeline Ivalu
Studio: Mongrel Media
Quebec / Canada, 86 min.

FNC OFFICIAL FILM SYNOPSIS:

"Anna (Marianne Farley) returns to Igloolik for the first time with her teenage son Tomas (Lukasi Forrest), whose father, now deceased, was a man she met while working there. As his mother tries to find her bearings in a place that inspires conflicting emotions, Tomas, introduced to his father’s family and his half-brother (Travis Kunnuk), tries to build roots. Both will grow in ways they didn’t expect. Shot on a small island in Nunavut, Uvanga (“myself” in Inuktitut) takes an unvarnished look at a people and a territory often idealized, vilified or reduced to local colour, but mostly just ignored. Avoiding both false hope and despair, the two filmmakers tell a heartwarming story from the inside out, beautifully conveyed by mostly non-professional actors. Visually arresting yet human-scaled, and never skipping over the dark side of the North (addiction, suicide), the film is as luminous as the midnight sun that gleams throughout."

This film is in competition in FOCUS category. It is a beautifully shot film, with stunning vistas of the Canadian High Arctic landscapes. Just the nature shots by themselves make it compelling to see the film and to discover the far north of our country which we, the city dwellers, do not know. 

What is even more important in this film are the human relationships set against the beautiful and yet somehow forbidding scenery. One soon discovers that the people who inhabit this land are not unlike the scenery, with ruff, uncut edges and even self-destructive traits, yet possessing mellow aspects to their personalities which could be as gentle as the subtle colourings of the vast natural vistas.

The acting in the film is surprisingly good, considering the characters were portrayed mostly by non-professional actors. At times the film has a documentary feel to it, especially in the scenes of the traditional hunting a seal skinning. This reinforces the aspect of reality and authenticity of the storyline and of people and situations portrayed in the film.

UVANGA Trailer:

The film was shot in a remote community on Baffin Island. The script is anchored in the culture, lifestyle, people, and place of Igloolik, Nunavut.

FNC 2013: Blind Dates

BLIND DATES

PRODUCTION TEAM:

Director: Levan Kogushvili
Exec. Producer: Keti Machavariani
Producer: Levan Koguashvili, Suliko Tsulikidzi, Olena Yershova
Screenplay: Levan Koguashvili, Boris Frumin
Cinematographer: Tato Kotetishvili
Editor: Nodar Nozadze
Sound: Paata Godziashvili
Prod. Designer: Kote Japaridze
Cast: Andro Shakhvaridze, Ia Sukhitashvili, Archil Kikodze, Kakhi Kavsadze
Production Co.: Kino Iberica, Millimeter Film
Gergia / 2013 / 98 min.

FNC OFFICIAL FILM SYNOPSIS :

"Sandro, a lonely 40-year-old bachelor, still lives with his folks, who fear he’ll never tie the knot. To find him a girlfriend, his buddy Iva signs him up for an online dating service. Sandro, though, shows zero interest in the women he meets on his blind dates. But just as everybody is about to give up hope, our hero falls head over heels for the mother of one of his high school students. Alas, her hotheaded husband will be out of jail soon and tends to settle his differences with his fists. Blind Dates, which had its world premiere at TIFF this year, is a tender look at a man’s fear of committing and facing the responsibilities a relationship entails. Despite its simple premise, the film compassionately explores the universal struggle to find true love. With a narrative that embraces la dolca vita, Levan Koguashvili’s second feature evokes the brilliant work of another Georgian filmmaker, Otar Iosseliani (Monday Morning and Farewell, Home Sweet Home)."

Blind Dates is presented in the International Competition category. It merited the Works in Progress Award at this year's The Karlovy Vary Film Festival. 

The film is a sensitive portrayal of an active searching for a lasting relationship where people resort to blind dating. It presents a common dilemma in the modern society: people failing to marry and to create a family in their twenties and thirties, and still searching for a right partner well into the forties and beyond. And even if they meet somebody they like, their dilemma is not resolved. That other, who seems to be so right, is entangled in their own problems of a failing marriage. The question arises, what is the right action under such circumstances: help to brake the dysfunctional marriage of the person one has met and with whom one feels so right, or step aside and allow the married couple to resolve their problems by themselves, to allow them to brake away on their own from their unsatisfying legal union. At the end, a question still lingers on: did the person step aside to give a loved one a space to brake from their marriage by themselves, or whether this act represented a need to withdraw into oneself and remain single and unattached, and stay away from any possible problems and complications.

One thing perplexing in this film: why do the two men bring their blind dates right away to a hotel room rather than to a more conversation friendly places like a cafe, a restaurant, or a bar. A hotel room has sexual connotations, as if the men were expecting an instant roll in the bed, yet there are no indications in the film that anything sexual takes place. The characters are shown simply sitting on a bed or on two separate beds while trying, quite unsuccessfully, to relate to each other.

The film has a great camera work with many unique and photographically compelling  shots and angles. This helps to create the mood and to project, as well as to understand, the characters disposition and emotive state.

Blind Dates was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in the Contemporary World Cinema category.

FNC 2013: Gare du Nord

Gare du Nord Official Poster

GARE DU NORD

PRODUCTION TEAM:

Director: Claire Simon
Screenwriters: Claire Simon, Shirel Amitay, Olivier Lorelle
Producer: Richard Copans
Directors of photography: Claire Simon, Richard Copans, Laurent Bourgeat
Music: Marc Ribot
Editor: Julien Lacheray
Cast: Nicole Garcia, Reda Kateb, Francois Damiens, Monia Chokri
Production companies: Les Films d’Ici, Productions Thalie
Sales Agent: Les Films d’Ici
France / Canada, 119 minutes

FNC OFFICIAL FILM SYNOPSIS :

"Thousands of people cross paths every day in Paris at the bustling, hectic Gare du Nord. It’s where Ismaël, who’s conducting surveys and completing his thesis on the train station, meets the beautiful 50-year-old Mathilde. Though she first rebuffs him, there’s still a spark and they strike up a conversation. Train stations are known for fleeting encounters, yet this chance meeting between a man and a woman develops into something more, a romance that’s intense, exquisite, but also impossible. As she gets to know Ismaël, Mathilde begins to see the Gare du Nord in a different light. The station has a true soul and teems with life—travellers, workers, merchants, cops and even the gangs that hang out there. Through this simple yet radical exploration, Claire Simon paints a subtle, vibrant portrait of a society founded on extreme mobility, high speed and a state of flux. There’s no lesson to be given here. Instead, this very human film is simply a testament to the powers of observation."

For his role in this film, the lead actor Reda Kateb has received the the Best Actor Award at the FIFF Namur film festival at Belgium. His performance in this film is remarkable, along with the performance of the lead actress Nicole Garcia. Together, they help to create a unique and compelling film that draws a spectator to discover a distinct subculture in a Paris North train station. 

The film forces the spectator to face those who find themselves creating or re-creating their reality, lives, and relationships within the train station's setting. The train station characters are mostly lost, troubled and vulnerable people, for whom it appears no better place exists, no other appropriate location is available within the society, where they can either simply spend their days, or within where they could acquire at least some sense of belonging, meaning and even love. 

Regardless of the age difference between the two leading characters, they are drawn to each as if to combat their personal troubles and loneliness, and the lack of real meaning in their everyday lives. However, they succeed to capture that elusive meaning only momentarily...

Is this film a sociological study or a sentimental story with at times blurred contours of reality? Varying aspects of the visual narrative weave through each other to create a strong and at times a touching, emotional and artistic impact.

The film will be shown:

Sunday, October 13 at 18:30. at Cinéma Imperial

Monday, October 14 at 17:00. at Cinéma Excentris

Film Trailer: GARE DU NORD

For more information on all the films shown during the festival, visit the festival’s website.

FNC 2013: Une Vie Pour Deux

Une Vie Pour Deux Official Poster

UNE VIE POUR DEUX

Directors: Luc Bourdon, Alice Ronfard

Play adaptation (script): Evelyne de la Chenelière

Actors:  Violette Chauveau, Jean-François Casabonne and Evelyne de la Chenelière

2013 | O.V. French | Quebec, Canada | 75min | colour

FNC OFFICIAL filM SYNOPSIS :

"What is a couple? Two people who try to build a life together or who simply live under the same roof? Is it easier to accept a man’s indiscretions? Is the first step in dominating a woman to rob her of her voice? French cultural journalist Bernard Pivot asked these questions, and many others, in his interview with Marie Cardinal in 1978, following the publication of her novel Une vie pour deux. It tells the story of Simone and Jean-François, a couple on the verge of breaking up, who are forced to re-examine their relationship after discovering the body of a young woman while on vacation in Ireland. Just as Evelyne de la Chenelière’s theatrical adaptation of the novel is set to return to the stage in Montreal, this film (the product of an artists’ residency at the Prim Centre) links the fascinating interview footage with the play’s subtle yet powerful staging. After winning the award for Best Canadian Feature at the 2008 Festival du Nouveau Cinéma for La mémoire des anges, Luc Bourdon teams up with Marie Cardinal’s daughter, Alice Ronfard, to pay heartfelt homage to this renowned feminist author, who passed away in 2001."

This film will have its world premiere on Monday, October 14, with actors Violette Chauveau, Jean-François Casabonne and Evelyne de la Chenelière attending. The film is presented in the FOCUS section, it is one of 12 features competing in this selection of cinema from Quebec and Canada.

Luc Bourdon partners with stage director Alice Ronfard to offer a fascinating reinterpretation of the theatre play adaptation created by an author and actress Evelyne de la Chenelière, based on the novel Une vie pour deux by Marie Cardinal (Les mots pour le dire), Alice Ronfard’s mother. It is a powerful essay-film, a testimony of creative work. Literature, theatre and cinema combine here to deliver a powerful effect. Une vie pour deux invites spectators to take in the voice of three characters on the screen and witness their struggle to find love and their place in life. Imaginary blends with real, the reconstruction of motives and events takes place to explain things one cannot grasp or understand in another. What is real? What is the expression of oneself that justifies one's life vis-a-vis a life partner or a fleeting lover? Where does one's self ends and the other's self begins?

Freely adapted from a novel, Une vie pour deux (La chair et autres fragments de l'amour), the film is inspired by a true story, the discovery by the husband of the author (stage director Jean-Pierre Ronfard) of the corpse of a young woman on a beach in Ireland at the end of the 70s. With its simultaneously subtle and powerful staging, the play received a very warm welcome from audiences and critics when it was presented at Espace Go in the spring of 2013. Moreover, actress Violette Chauveau won the Best actress of the year award from the Association québécoise des critiques de théâtre.

  

World premiere at Festival du nouveau cinéma

Monday, October 14 at 7 p.m. at Cinéma Excentris – hosted by the film cast and crew

Thursday, October 17 at 1 p.m. at Cinéma Excentris

Film's Trailer:

Une vie pour deux (Luc Bourdon, Alice Ronfard) - Bande annonce

Une vie pour deux was made during a two-year creation and production residency offered by PRIM on the occasion of the centre turning 30.

PRIM - Productions Réalisations Indépendantes de Montréal is a self-managed centre in the service of the creativity of professional motion picture and sound artists who want to make quality independent works, in a context of hybridity of practices. PRIM is subsidized by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the Conseil des arts de Montréal.

FNC 2013: Bluebird

BLUEBIRD

Director:  Lance Edmands

Screenplay:  Lance Edmands 

Actors:  Amy Morton, John Slattery, Louisa Krause 

2013 | O.V. English | United States | 90min | colour

FNC Official Film SYNOPSIS :

"In a depressed logging town in northern Maine, a school bus driver’s world is turned upside down due to her own negligence. After her shift, Lesley forgets to check the back of the bus and leaves behind a sleeping child. Suffering from hypothermia, the little boy slips into a coma, leaving this already fragile community reeling. Bluebird deftly examines the profound consequences of this roadside tragedy and the psychological toll it takes on the residents of an isolated village. While the premise is reminiscent of The Sweet Hereafter (1997), Atom Egoyan’s adaptation of the Russell Banks novel, Lance Edmands successfully distinguishes his picture from the Canadian film by weaving in multiple storylines that subtly flesh out our understanding of the characters and plot. Understated and beautifully shot in 35mm, Bluebird is anchored by superb performances from Amy Morton, Louisa Krause, John Slattery and Emily Meade, who lend the film its near intolerable yet effective tension. Edmands has made a sensitive and realistic first feature, proving that he’s a talented newcomer to watch."

The Festival du Nouveau Cinema (FNC) presents this film in the International Competition Category - LOUVRE D’OR. The film is competing for the festival's most prestigious prize.

The film is about an unintentional human error, a moment of distraction when a bluebird flies into a school bus, a distracts the bus driver from her usual routine. This leads to grave consequences, and impacts all the characters in the film either directly or indirectly. They all take their individual paths to express their reactions to what had happened, and have to come to terms with that through examining their feelings and relationships.

The film will be shown:

Wednesday, October 14 at 16:00. at Cinéma Excentris

Thursday, October 12 at 21:30. at Cinéma Excentris

FNC webpage

Film Trailer: Bluebird

For more information on all the films shown during the festival, visit the festival’s website.

http://www.nouveaucinema.ca/en/2013/