FIFA 2016: AWARDS

Awards of the 34rd FIFA

The 34th edition of the International Festival of Films on Art (FIFA) has ended on Sunday, March 20, 2016. Tthe film La collection qui n’existait pas, by Joachim Olender (Belgium), is the grand winner of the competition.

From March 10 to 20, FIFA offered to festival-goers 170 documentaries from 25 countries, including, for the first time, films from Morocco and the Luxembourg.

The jury of the 34th FIFA

The President of the 34th FIFA international jury:

 Paul Maréchal, art historian, awarded prizes to 13 films from ten countries.

Other members of the jury:

Nathalie Barton, producer of auteur documentaries

Pascal Gélinas, filmmaker

Joseph Hillel, producer and filmmaker

Mariella Pandolfi, professor of anthropology and music lover

The Awards of the 34th FIFA

13 films from 10 countries were awarded prizes.

Two Canadian films were among the award recipients.

Grand Prize

LA COLLECTION QUI N’EXISTAIT PAS

Joachim Olender (Belgium)

Jury Award

ONE MILLION STEPS

Eva Stotz (Germany, Turkey, Netherlands)

Award for Best Educational Film

Ex æquo

LE CERCLE DE KANTOR Adrianna Ksiazek, Iwo Ksiazek (Poland)

VIVA DADA, Régine Abadia (France)

Award for Creativity

SOUNDHUNTERS, A MUSICAL EXPEDITION

Béryl Koltz (Luxembourg, France)

Award for Best Canadian Film

Ex æquo

NOUS AUTRES, LES AUTRES, Jean-Claude Coulbois (Canada)

UN HOMME DE DANSE, Marie Brodeur (Canada)

Award for Best Portrait

HOCKNEY

Randall Wright (United Kingdom)

Award for Best Essay

JUSTE AVANT L’ORAGE

Don Kent (France)

Award for Best Portrait

GIOVANNI SEGANTINI – MAGIE DE LA LUMIÈRE

Christian Labhart (Switzerland)

Award for Best Film for Television

Sponsored by Digital Cut

COCOTTES ET COURTISANES DANS L’OEIL DES PEINTRES

Sandra Paugam (France)

Liliane Stewart Award for Design Arts

Sponsored by the Council for Canadian American Relations

GETTING FRANK GEHRY

Sally Aitken (Australia)

Special Mention

PAOLO VENTURA, VANISHING MAN

Erik Van Empel (Netherlands)

Quebec participation

Among FIFA films international program, several films with Quebec artists stood out and resulted in discussions and popular activities among festival-goers. The public was able to talk with

• Jean-Claude Coulbois, director of Nous autres, les autres (FIFA opening film), and 
• Vincent Warren, the famous dancer, former soloist of the Grands Ballets Canadiens, whose carrier was portrayed in the film by Marie Brodeur Un homme de danse. FIFA closing film)

Both films won ex æquo the Award for tBest Canadian Film.

In addition:

• Several films focused on fashion designers. That included the acclaimed Revealing Marie Saint Pierre | Marie Saint Pierre se révèle by Janice Zolf, with a public discussions with the famous designer.
• The director Étienne Desrosiers gave a master class on the challenges faced in the making of his film on the renowned Quebec architect Roger D’Astous.
• Also, there was a performance of the singer Tomás Jensen, following the screening of the film about this musician by Martin Bourgault Retour.

For more information on Art FIFA, visit the Art FIFA website.

FIFA 2016: Caravaggio

Caravage

Film by Jean-Michel Meurice

France | French | 2015 | 52 min

CANADIAN PREMIERE

The film presents the short and tortuous life of the Italian late Renaissance painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, simply known as Caravaggio (Caravage in French). He trained as a painter in Milan under Simone Peterzano who in turn had trained under Titian.

In 1600, in his twenties, Caravaggio moved to Rome, and conquered the Rome’s art scene with his first public commissions, the Martyrdom of Saint Matthew and Calling of Saint Matthew. After that he never lacked commissions or patrons but handled his success poorly. He often engaging in street brawls, and in 1606 killed a man, most likely unintentionally. After that he escaped to Naples, and later to Malta. But he did not stay long in Malta.  He once again participated in a brawl, and regardless of the great success he had with his commissioned paintings, landed in a prison, from which he managed to escape. His life was not too long after that.

The film describes all the twists and turns of this very talented young artist’s life. It shows many of his painting and gives details of who commissioned them and when. It draws a parallel between the brutal biblical scenes he immortalized in his canvas and his own life path.

Official Synopses: 

"The life of Caravaggio (1571-1610) was brief and violent. After ten years of triumphs in Rome, lucrative commissions from powerful sources, a dangerous attraction to the lowest depths of society, endless quarrels, several imprisonments, a death sentence for murder and a forced exile on the run, this quick-tempered and irascible man died at the age of 39. His oeuvre as we know it today stems from the tireless work of historians. Of the more than 500 canvases attributed to him three centuries after his death, less than fifty were actually his. This film investigates 22 major works in Rome, Malta, Paris, Rouen and Montpellier."

Jean-Michel Meurice

Jean-Michel Meurice is a painter and filmmaker. He is a co-founder of ARTE, which he directed from 1986 to 1989. He is also a producer, author and director of monthly magazines devoted to the plastic arts on French television.

Filmography | Simon Hantaï, les silences rétiniens (1978) ; Pierre Soulages (1981), 1er FIFA ; Bram van Velde (1980), 20e FIFA ; Cory Aquino (1989) ; Solidarnosc (1990) ; Apartheid (1992) ; La parade des saigneurs (1995) ; Familles macabres (1996) ; Un doux rebelle : Julien Green, journal d'un siècle (1997), 17e FIFA ; L'orchestre noir (1998) ; Alechinsky pris sur le vif (2004) ; Velickovic, les apparences de la peur (2005), 24e FIFA ; Le vrai pouvoir du Vatican (2010) ; Algérie, notre histoire (2011).

Production Team:

Cinematography Valentin Caron
Music Gérard Cohen-Tannugi
Narration Philippe Faure, Anna Flori-Lamour
Participation Sybille Ebert-Schifferer, Michel Laclotte, Michel Hilaire
Artists Le Caravage, Sybille Ebert-Schifferer, Michel Laclotte, Michel Hilaire
Producer Fabienne Servan Schreiber, Laurence Miller, Emélie De Jong
Production ARTE France, Cinétévé
Distribution Poorhouse International

For more information and film scheduling, visit the Art FIFA website.

Film Screenings:

Sunday March 13 | 12:30 PM | Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal - Auditorium Maxwell-Cummings 

  

Sunday March 20 | 10:30 AM | Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal - Auditorium Maxwell-Cummings 

FILM TRAILER

FIFA 2016: Chagall, peintre de la musique

Chagall, peintre de la musique

Film by Mathilde Deschamps Lotthé

France | French | 2015 | 53 min

NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE

This film, full of colour and music, is wonderful to watch. It presents life and work of Marc Chagall in a comprehensive and sensitive way. An early modernist, he was associated with several major artistic styles and created works in virtually every artistic medium, including painting, book illustrations, stained glass, stage sets, costume designs, ceramic, tapestries, and fine art prints. He produced windows for the cathedrals of Reims and Metz, windows for the UN, and the Jerusalem Windows in Israel. He also did large-scale paintings, including part of the ceiling of the Paris Opéra (see the photo above, click to enlarge).

Film shows convincingly how important was music for Chagall, and how music leitmotivs ran throughout his creations. It contains many photographs, several film clippings with Chagall commenting about his art, and many interviews with the art expects and those who preserve his works. His granddaughter also appears in the film.

Chagall's poetic, figurative style made him one of the most popular modern artists. His long life and the variety of his artistic output made him one of the most internationally recognized.

Official Synopses: 

"When we think of the Russian-French artist Marc Chagall (1887-1985), what comes to mind are pairs of lovers in the sky, colourful bouquets and dreamlike representations of transformed reality. What is less known is that Chagall had a a close relationship with music, a passion that came from a childhood steeped in Klezmer music and liturgical psalms. This film shows how this passion was expressed in his work, from his recurring representations of musical instruments to his sets and costumes for opera and ballet."

Mathilde Deschamps Lotthé

Mathilde Deschamps Lotthé makes human-interest documentaries, specializing over the last decade in subjects relating to heritage and the arts.
  

Filmography | Passion patrimoine : De l'Auvergne à la Lorraine (2011) et De l'Auvergne à l'Alsace (2012), émission Des Racines et des ailes ; Sur les pas de Mozart (2012) ; Picasso et les photographes (2013).

Production Team:

Screenplay Mathilde Deschamps Lotthé
Cinematography Franck Carimalo, Jennifer Luby
Sound Bruno Diego
Artists Marc Chagall
Production avec la participation de France 5, Eclectic Production
Distribution Eclectic Production

For more information and film scheduling, visit the Art FIFA website.

Film Screenings:

Friday March 11 | 12:30 PM | Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal - Auditorium Maxwell-Cummings   

Sunday March 20 | 3:00 PM | Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal - Auditorium Maxwell-Cummings

FILM TRAILER

FIFA 2016: Viva DADA

Viva Dada

Film by Régine Abadia

France | French | 2015 | 52 min

NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE

If you would like to discover the DADA movement or simply learn more about it, this is the film to see. It goes into depth of what it was all about, of its raison d'etre, the artistic issues it addressed, and the social and political realities of the time that provoked its birth and sustained its argumentation.

DADA movement was active for only 7 years, between 1916-1923. Yet it had a serious impact on the arts at large, on the philosophical and social issues it addressed through its nihilism, deconstruction of the standard perceptions, and through making collages and word assemblages that at once negated the reality as it was known, presented the absurdity of what was happening around them, commented on the standard human existence at large, and served as a new aesthetics of how to see the world and make art.  

The film portrays the leaders of the movement, documents the Dada activities which included public gatherings, demonstrations, publication of their manifestos as well as art and literary journals. It also points out that DADA type of thinking still persists and influences contemporary artists.


Official Synopses:

"In 1916, artists from across Europe came together around a pacifist ideal, calling themselves the Dadaists. This international, controversial artistic and literary movement would revolutionize art in the twentieth century. One hundred years later, this film allows the voices of the Dadaists - Tristan Tzara, Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia, Jean Arp and Man Ray - to be heard again, as subversive as ever. It also follows the completion of one of Tzara's major unfinished projects: Dadaglobe, a compendium and a genuine work of art. 

If you want to discover more about the Dadaists and celebrate the centenary of the movement, you can visit the interactive website, digital cabaret, www.dada-data.net."

Régine Abadia

Régine Abadia makes feature films and documentaries, as well as being a scriptwriter and photographer.

Filmography | The Spirit of Gospel (2008) ; Pigalle nuit et jour (2000) ; Dalida, chez nous soyez reine (2002) ; Pourquoi marcher quand on peut rouler ? (2003) ; Berit (2006) ;  Jenny Bel’air (2008) ; Yasmina et Mohammed (2012).

Production Team:

Screenplay Régine Abadia
Cinematography Dominique Colin, Dominique Fausset
Sound Jean-François Mabire, Romain Parrault, Jules Evrard
Editing Vincent Schmitt, Joseph Licidé
Music Margarida Guia
Narration Françoise Cadol
Animation Ricardo Kump
Graphic creation Ricardo Kump
Artists Tristan Tzara, Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia, Jean Arp, Man Ray, Max Ernst, Raoul Hausmann, Hannah Höch, Hugo Ball
Producer Sophie Parrault
Production Bonne Pioche, Centre Pompidou, ARTE France
Distribution Lucky You

For more information and film scheduling, visit the Art FIFA website.

Film Screenings:

Thursday March 17 | 10:30 AM | Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal - Auditorium Maxwell-Cummings   

Friday March 18 | 3:00 PM | Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal - Auditorium Maxwell-Cummings

FILM TRAILER

FIFA 2016: Picasso, Making of the Icon

Picasso, naissance d'une icône
The Making of the Icon

Film by Hopi Lebel 

France | French | subtitled English | 2015 | 54 min

NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE

This film brings to life Pablo Picasso (1881 – 1973) who is considered to be one of the greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century. He was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and stage designer who spent most of his life in France. He is known for co-founding the Cubist movement, and also for the wide variety of styles that he helped to develop and explore.

Among Picasso’s  most famous works are Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907), and Guernica (1937) which  portrays the Bombing of the Basque town Guernica by the German and Italian air forces at the request of the Spanish nationalist government during the Spanish Civil War. Both masterpieces are discussed in the film.

The film exams the artist’s life, presents many photographs and video clips of his public appearances and from his private life, and attempts to uncover how Picasso conquered the imagination of people not only with his art but also with his personality and self-promotion. Yet no replicable formula of his success was uncovered. He was a very unique man. No one could replicate his success by following his example in attempting to achieve fame and artistic recognition as Picasso did. And this comes out loud and clear in the film.

Official Synopses:

“Picasso is a towering figure in contemporary art and in contemporary mindsets, not only because of his boundless creativity, but because of his innate talent for communication. His need to nurture his own public image became evident and essential to him very early on. Intercut with previously unreleased archival material and interviews with specialists and those who knew him, this film sheds new light on how the most famous painter in the world was able to mould his own legend and become the universal embodiment of the creative genius.”

Hopi Lebel

After studies in art history and philosophy, Hopi Lebel became a writer-director. All of his films have been shown on French television.

Filmography | Helsinki (2000) ; Goa (2001) ; Francis Picabia (2002), 21e FIFA ; Vuillard (2003), 22e FIFA ; Avec Vincent Lindon (2002) ;  Qui a tué dada ? (2005), 24e FIFA ; Clint Eastwood (2007), 26e FIFA, coréal. Michael Wilson ; Édouard Manet, une inquiétante étrangeté (2011), 30e FIFA.

Production Team:

Screenplay Stéphane Guéguan, Hopi Lebel

Cinematography Denis Gaubert
Editing Marine Benveniste
Music Manuel Peskine
Participation Olivier Widmaier Picasso, Jeff Koons, Maya Widmaier Picasso, Diana Widmaier Picasso, John Richardson, Guy Scarpetta, Didier Ottinger, Glenn D. Lowry, Nathalie Heinich, Philippe Dagen, Émilie Bouvard, Stéphane Guéguan
Artists Pablo Picasso, Olivier Widmaier-Picasso, Jeff Koons, Maya Widmaier Picasso, Diana Widmaier Picasso, John Richardson, Guy Scarpetta, Didier Ottinger, Glenn D. Lowry, Nathalie Heinich, Philippe Dagen, Émilie Bouvard, Stéphane Guéguan
Producer Sylvie Cazin
Production INA, Welcome, RMN-Grand Palais
Distribution INA

For more information and film scheduling, visit the Art FIFA website.

Film Screenings:

Friday March 18 | 5:00 PM | Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal - Auditorium Maxwell-Cummings  

Sunday March 20 | 12:30 PM | Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal - Auditorium Maxwell-Cummings 

FILM TRAILER

FIFA 2016: El Greco

El Greco: An Artist's Odyssey

Film by David Hammer

United States | English | 2014 | 30 min

CANADIAN PREMIERE

The film presents a life of El Greco and shows many of his painting. It discusses his artistic path and difficulties to secure a place with the art patrons of the time. Despite being only 30 minutes long, the film succeeds in drawing a compelling portrait of El Greco as a man and an artist with a very individual perception and sensibility of how to paint.

El Greco was born with a name Doménikos Theotokópoulos (1541 – 1614). He was a painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. He is best known for his painting with elongated figures some of the in tortuous poses, as well as his specific coloration. El Greco is characterized by modern scholars as an artist so individual that he belongs to no conventional school or art movement.

His nickname "El Greco" refers both to his Greek origin and Spanish citizenship. However, he signed his panting with his full birth name in Greek letters, often adding the word "Cretan" since he was born in Crete, which was at the time part of the Republic of Venice.

At the age of 26, he travelled to Venice, which was then the center of Post-Byzantine art. In 1570 he moved to Rome, where he opened a workshop and painted a series of commissioned works. In 1577, he moved to Toledo, Spain, where he lived and worked until his death, and produced his best-known paintings.

El Greco's unique dramatic style was not recognized by his contemporaries as of great value. After his death, he fell into an oblivion which lasted for over three centuries. He finally found appreciation in the 20th century, due to his expressionistic style. Now, he is regarded as a precursor of both Expressionism and Cubism. His personality and works were a source of inspiration for poets and writers, among them Rainer Maria Rilke and Nikos Kazantzakis.

Official Synopses:

“Bornin Crete, El Greco (1541-1614) began his career as a painter of icons for Byzantine churches. Moving to Italy and then to Spain, his work combined lessons learned from the glories of Byzantium with the ravishing colour of Venetian art and the elegant artificialities of Roman mannerism. In Toledo, he created a series of works in a visionary style charged with emotion and drama. Although his work puzzled many contemporaries, later artists such as Picasso considered him a prophet of modernism. This film coincided with the exhibition El Greco in the National Gallery of Art and Washington-Area Collections: A 400th Anniversary Celebration.”

David Hammer

Born in Washington, David Hammer received an M.A. in directing from Columbia University in New York. He has worked in film and television for more than 20 years. In 2010, he joined the production unit of the National Gallery of Art.

Filmography | First Movie (1993) ; Becky and Pete (1999) ; Three-Quarters of the World (1999) ; Magic and Loss (2002) ; Pigeon Cove (2003) ; To Remember Him (2005) ; George Bellows (2012), 31e FIFA.

Production Team:

Screenplay Carroll Moore
Cinematography Patrick Duval, Richard Numeroff
Editing Barbara Burst
Narration Adrien Brody
Artists El Greco
Producer Carroll Moore, Susan Arensberg
Production National Gallery of Art
Distribution National Gallery of Art

For more information and film scheduling, visit the Art FIFA website.

Film Screenings:

Sunday March 13 | 12:30 PM | Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal - Auditorium Maxwell-Cummings 
  

Sunday March 20 | 10:30 AM | Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal - Auditorium Maxwell-Cummings 

FILM TRAILER

FIFA 2016: Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun

Le fabuleux destin d'Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun, peintre de Marie-Antoinette

Film by Arnaud Xainte

France | language: French | 2015 | 94 min

NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE

Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun left a legacy of more than 600 portraits, 200 landscapes, and drawings. In addition to private collections, her works are displayed by major museums, such as the Russia's Hermitage Museum, London's National Gallery, and museums in continental Europe and the United States.

A child prodigy, she became a professional portrait painter at the age of 14. She was the daughter of a portraitist and fan painter Louis Vigée, who adored his daughter and started instructing her in the arts of portrait painting when she was 6 years old. Ambitious and independent, she rose above her middle class beginnings, through the Frances's high class circles, to become a private painter of Marie-Antoinette. Since no photography existed at that time, portrait painting was the only way to capture a person's likeness and preserve it for the posterity.

The film documents Vigée Le Brun's life, from her birth until her death in 1832 at the age of 86. It discloses her character, her private life, her career as a painter, and documents her 12 years in exile when she fled France after the arrest of the royal family during the French Revolution. During those exhile years, she lived and worked in Italy, Austria, and Russia, where her experience in dealing with an aristocratic clientèle proved to be useful. Later on in life, she travelled to London where she also painted portraits.

Here is an intriguing quoit from her Memoirs, "Avant la Révolution, les femmes avaient le pouvoir. La Révolution les a détrônées." Or in English, "Before the Revolution, women had power. The Revolution dethroned them."

The film also discusses other prominent women portraitists of the period, and the fact they were forgotten in the art history narrative compiled by men.

Official Synopses:

“Born into a middle-class family, Elisabeth Vigée le Brun (1755-1842) painted the most famous portraits of Marie-Antoinette. In exile during the Revolution, she returned under the Empire and took part in both the Restoration and the July Monarchy. Welcomed into all the courts of Europe, she created 650 portraits and 150 drawings, commanding the highest fees of her era. Historical reconstructions, fictional scenes and interviews with historians combine to form this rich portrait.”

Arnaud Xainte

After studies in law and finance, Arnaud Xainte studied screenwriting and filmmaking at the Sorbonne Nouvelle. He currently works as a producer, writer and director.

Filmography | Bourse, ton univers impitoyable (2011) ; Cocteau, je reste avec vous (2013) ; Cartier la petite boîte rouge (2013) ; Jésuites (2014) ; Rita Hayworth, et l'homme créa la déesse (2014), 33e FIFA.

Production Team:

Screenplay Jean-Frédéric Thibault
Cinematography Thomas Jacquet, Thomas Lallier
Sound Frédéric Dabo, Pierre Excoffier, Valentin Excoffier
Editing Stéphane Rolland
Music Hélène Blazy
Narration Stéphane Ronchewski
Artists Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun
Producer Laure Bernard
Production Illégitime Défense
Distribution Illégitime Défense

For more information and film scheduling, visit the Art FIFA website.

Film Screenings:

Saturday March 12 | 5:00 PM | Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal - Auditorium Maxwell-Cummings

Saturday March 19 | 3:00 PM | Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal - Auditorium Maxwell-Cummings 

FILM TRAILER