myDylarama

Q&A with Thomas Vernay, dir. Miss Chazelles - Clermont 2020

Elise Loiseau — 2020-02-07T17:42:22Z

Clara and Marie are rival competitors for the title of Miss Chazelles-sur-Lyon. As Marie is declared winner of a local beauty pageant, tension escalates between both girls's families and supporters.

Miss Chazelles, Aesthetica 2019's Best Drama award-winner, is a warm, irreverent and somewhat terrifying look at the word of regional pageants and the resulting drama. Despite the absurdity of the situation and its more ridiculously over-the-top behaviour, Thomas Vernay's portrayal is never patronising; treating us to more complex dynamics between fully-fledged characters.

Trailer

Miss Chazelles - Bande Annonce from Thomas Vernay on Vimeo.

More on the film...

Tell us a little about how Miss Chazelles came to be.

I always have a hard time answering that question. There are so many reasons behind a film's origins… The most important, I think, was me really wanting to shoot a film in the village where I grew up. It's not a place I necessarily have fond memories of, and I've hardly ever gone back there since I was eighteen. I wanted to compare my childhood memories with the person I've become. I once read a story in the paper about a “war” between two beauty queens in a village in the South. That's what got things rolling. The other reason was that I wanted to create a role for Megan. I really wanted to make a film with her.

It initially seems as though the film represents stereotyped gender roles (beauty pageants for girls, violence for boys), and then ends up – no spoilers ! – thwarting those stereotypes. Is that how you intended things in the script?

Yes, of course. The film plays on stereotypes, caricatures. Even though everything is also very true to life. I wrote the script with intentional references to fairytale princesses, especially the ones Disney has adapted, which are mostly very sexist. The motorcycles that recall chargers, the two rival families, the sword, the standard, the celebration room that represents the ball, the “evil” twins, the father who's a dragon, the princess' dress, and so on. But then I tried to distance myself from all that and overturn the codes. It's a film about the social and emotional condition, dominated by men. Clara is surrounded by men who direct her constantly, who prevent her from becoming free. With each effort, she returns to her condition.

How did you work with the two lead actresses?

I'd worked with Megan on two previous videos. And I really wanted to work with her on a fiction film. With Alice, I was immediately taken with her during her casting call. I didn't necessarily see the character Marie like that, so I ended up moulding Marie to fit Alice. The character became softer, more introverted. Actually, it's a bit the same with Megan as well. I guess the character has a great deal of her essence. Working together was pretty regular. We met for rehearsals in order to get the tone and naturalness of the lines right. On the set, we rehearsed again before each scene. We made sure they owned their movements, the tempo and the lines. I think they both worked out wonderfully.

What works do you particularly admire?

I'm not being very adventurous given her filmography, but I love all of Andrea Arnolds' films. I like her characters, the way she directs actors and actresses. I love her composition, her colors, her dialogue. Her films are full of enthusiasm. I also really enjoy Kelly Reichardt. Meek's Cutoff is one of the most beautiful period films. Her female characters are strong and her films have something visceral about them. Then of course there's Jane Campion. This isn't very original, but The Piano Lesson is one of the most beautiful films I've ever seen. Top of the Lake is still my favorite television series. But that's cheating since I don't really watch tv shows…

Have you discovered any advantages that the short film form provides?

Being able to make one, to start off. It's an accessible format. It allows you to keep costs down and shoot quickly. I produced it myself (through my production company) without receiving any financial assistance. I don't necessarily recommend doing that, it's hard. But it was a decision I made in a hurry, a necessity. I was free from the beginning to the end of the project. It was also the result of a remarkable team who I'd really like to work with again one day. Each person involved in this project, without exception, was enormously helpful, and there is a little bit of each of them in the film.

Q&A with Gabrielle Stemmer, dir. Clean With Me (After Dark)

Abla Kandalaft — 2020-02-07T16:11:27Z

Through a very clever and revealing video montage, Gabrielle Stemmer not only sheds light on somewhat depressing phenomenon of cleaning videos on YouTube but silently and subtly unearths the loneliness and neuroses that often underpin it, in a society in which women are homemakers and the home is their gilded cage.

How did you discover the “world” of YouTube?

I've been a heavy YouTube user for seven or eight years now – it's TV for me. I'd say that from the beginning I've been watching stuff that's 90% female-oriented. I started with videos on beauty, cooking, interior decorating, areas that I only have a scant interest in in real life. The conclusion I drew from this paradox is that what interested me was watching how other women experienced their own femininity, and seeing how far the mental burden could be constructed as a life strategy. The videos relax me since I watch them with a certain detachment, and at the same time they awaken a sort of quasi-anthropological curiosity in me. YouTube's algorithm decided it was time for me to explore the domestic side of the platform when CLEAN WITH ME appeared in my “recommendations based on my subscriptions”.

Did you contact any of those YouTubers?

I got into contact with each of the women who appear in the film, even if it was just to let them know that I intended to use their content. At the beginning of the project I was mostly corresponding with Jessica of “Keep Calm and Clean”, the YouTuber you see most in the film and who seesaws with the nervous off-camera of the cleaning videos. At the time, I'd talked to her about the project and suggested we meet on Skype later that year when the film would be further along. She was very open and enthusiastic but I ended up going down a different path that precluded that type of interview. I sent her the finished film by email, carefully explaining my approach and the viewer comments relative to her words, but she didn't reply. I don't know if she watched the film.

Tell us a bit about your cinematic choice. Why did you opt for this form of documentary (video montage, no voice-over, etc.)?

The topic and the form came together at the same time. And after I discovered Kevin B. Lee's film Transformers: The Premake, which blazed the trail, there was never a question in my mind about making the film in any other way than as a “desktop documentary”. I was also lucky enough to be able to talk to Lee several times throughout the film's production. The form makes it possible to get directly to the heart of the matter: the whole context is there on the screen, the images are connected to their manner of broadcasting but also to their position within a community. You also immediately put the viewer in a familiar environment that's part of their daily life as an internet user. That's why I made my narrator's presence more and more discrete throughout the editing process, in order to reinforce the viewer's identification with the consciousness that clicks. They forget the narrator-clicker in favor of the women who appear one-by-one on the screen and whose words I wanted them to hear. That's also why I wanted there not to be a voice-over. I wanted the film to move forward exclusively through the mouse, the keyboard, the windows that open and close, I wanted the viewer's gaze to be guided by the silent narrator, to be led on almost despite themselves, in a relentless march. Doubtless that was partially due to my fantasy as an editor, which is my initial calling, creating meaning exclusively by organizing images, their sequencing, their placement, their relationship to sounds.

These types of videos mostly come from the United States.Why do you think that is the case? Is the trend spreading?

That's a very good question. It's tempting to answer that American YouTubers make up the majority of this type of production on YouTube, but that's difficult to say given that through their algorithms, YouTube, like social networks in general, only show us what we're in the habit of watching. There are French housekeeping videos, for example, but they either copy American ones with less success, or they play on another niche that is more natural and biographical, which is very interesting but also very different. What made me want to use the American images was the fact that they all look the same. It was the uniformity of their appearance and of their houses that made me want to make a film about these women, because that produces infinitely meaningful images. Yes, of course, the trend is spreading and in quite vicious guises, which don't balk at using feminist terms, or the very trendy word “empowering”, to spur a return to the hearth that I personally find very disturbing.

What would you like people to take from your film?

I think we need to be educated about how we watch widely-broadcast audiovisual productions that are now part of our daily life and that we easily take in without sufficient distance, and that is problematic. Despite my own relatively detached way of consuming them, I can clearly see that these videos grew on me, and I was surprised to find myself under the influence of the influencers. What sort of role model do the images of women on YouTube channel for teenage girls? You only have to take a look at the comments under the videos to realize how big the problem is. At the same time though, there's hope on social networks and I don't think we should belittle their documentary benefit, which is something I wanted to show through my film. On YouTube and Instagram, women can express themselves without an intermediary, and on a large scale, two conditions that up to now have been inaccessible to women. What's at stake is genuine freedom of speech, especially with regard to topics that are typically feminine. My film addresses isolation and psychological suffering, but there are also many new voices to be heard about giving birth and about sexual violence.

What advantages has the short film format offered you?

Shorts make it possible to give a hint of something, to experiment. I'm not sure this type of narration could sustain a longer format… I'll think about it though. I think the fact that it was a short helped me to not try to be exhaustive and stuff everything I wanted to say into the film, and to privilege saying things clearly and making the development efficient. Shorts are less definitive than feature films and allow you to tell yourself that you'll get to everything else later.

Nightcleaners at Bertha DocHouse

Benjamin Hollis — 2019-11-02T10:01:07Z

Nightcleaners – An oddity of its time that captures the British working class struggle of the early 1970s

« Nightcleaners » is an early 70s observational account of London's female office cleaners embroiled in an arduous struggle for fair pay and fair treatment by their male and middle-class bosses. The film has an admirable grip on the public conscience, garnering sustained attention from activists and doc-lovers alike over the years and prompting a well-received screening at Bertha Dochouse on Thursday. Sally Alexander, a leading figure in the Cleaners Action Group during the campaign, was alongside Humphry Trevelyan, a member of the film's production team, to introduce it.

Starting life as a leafleting campaign to unionise the cleaners, the film snowballed into a four-year project, resulting in a 90 minute piece that in 1975 at its time of release, baffled its subjects.

As she described on Wednesday, this was not the punchy campaign film Sally had hoped to unveil to her fellow activists as a recruitment tool. What Humphrey and the rest of the Berwick Street Collective had produced was an experimental, patient and deeply artistic piece. Although that seemed to stymie its purpose at the time, its qualities have granted it the longevity and admiration that it enjoys to this day.

What the film does particularly well is demonstrate the tedium, monotony and physicality of the women's work. With painstaking precision and repetition, the women are shown scouring the offices of London's high-rises, floor by floor, desk by desk, toilet by toilet. In the early stages of the film, the audience is only spared from the experience to be given excerpts of infuriating conversations with the bosses, who show a bewildering lack of understanding for their employees. It's revealed that one boss has never been seen by any of his cleaners in over five years of work.

With despair, the women describe the helplessness of their situations. Too poor to clothe their children and too busy with childcare to take regular work, they are forced to work unthinkable hours on little pay, most of them surviving on just two hours of sleep a day. Worst of all, they don't have the time, energy or courage to stand up to their employers. Frequent close-ups of the women's faces show a fatigue that is etched deep into their features.

We then discover former cleaner May Hobbs who, assisted by members of the Women's Liberation Movement, gradually persuades the women to consider mounting a resistance against their bosses and increasingly against the patriarchal system in which they find themselves.

As the women continue to encounter obstacles, chairing desperate meeting after desperate meeting, the picture widens to capture a snapshot of working class British society at a fascinating time. Hope of a better future is spreading amongst workers who, like the nightcleaners, had once abandoned themselves to their fate. The words « socialism », « equality » and even « communism » are cautiously being spread amongst co-workers as protests increase out on the streets and trade unions grow in power and influence.

« Nightcleaners » is a beautiful and artistic interpretation of class struggle in its clearest form. It shows an admirable sensitivity for its subjects and successfully translates the acute pain they and other working people's situation brings them.

The sequel, « '36 to '77 », will be showing at Bertha Dochouse on Wednesday the 6th of November, followed by a Q&A with the audience.

Support The Girls by Andrew Bujalski

Ania D. Brett — 2019-06-27T13:20:16Z

COMING OUT TOMORROW Excellent statement on the dynamic of precarious work and the women taking it on - SUPPORT THE GIRLS by Andrew Bujalski

SUPPORT THE GIRLS follows Lisa (Regina Hall), the general manager at Double Whammies, a highway-side ‘sports bar with curves', who has her normally unstoppable optimism and faith – in her girls, her customers, and herself – tested over the course of a long, strange day.

Double Whammies, a low-budget Hooters, is a typical sports bar and “brestaurant” facing competition from strip bars (should they ever decide to install TVs), casual dining restaurants with TVs in the bars, and the actual Hooters (in this universe, named Mancave). Of course it doesn't look like that in the day-to-day. For manager and mother hen, Lisa, on her last day, she only sees problems with staff, customers and life. There is also the problem of the job itself—as the restaurant manager shares the precarious employment situation and income bracket with the front- and back-of-house staff, and shares the responsibilities of the restaurant owner, but none of the real power.

Support the Girls does not centre on workers' personal dramas, like Waitress (2007) or Clerks II (2006)—essentially soap operas with poor people—but is a statement on this dynamic. In the world of 2019 the bottom rungs of the restaurant industry are not entry-level, summer, or student jobs; it's how working people support their working families. As such, Double Whammies is simply an expression of social and economic stratification, with working-class problems like lack of child care, lack of options and lack of wealth expressed as bringing your child to work and stealing. Both Lisa and owner Cubby ask waitress Danyelle if she likes working at DW and both misunderstand her “yes” response. Danyelle likes that Lisa actually cares about the staff, and, when Cubby asks her, she clearly means she likes earning money to live.

Writer and director Andrew Bujalski understands that, in the service environment, it is the colleagues that keep you there since, ultimately, your only option is to waitress, cook, or sell elsewhere, which could be an even worse situation. Think less girl power and more surviving sexism. Thus, the film has no theme or plot, which is why there is no ending. The nature of the new working-class life, and old/ongoing Black life, is characterised by uncertainty, so the girls are doing what they can with what they have—hoping for more but are unlikely to get it.

RELEASED IN UK CINEMAS ON 28 JUNE 2019

Woman at War by Benedikt Erlingsson - Q&A

Abla Kandalaft — 2019-05-01T14:09:57Z

Benedikt Erlingsson is an Icelandic director, author and actor. His first feature, Of Horses and Men, was a hit on the festival circuit and won many international awards, including the New Directors Prize at the 2013 San Sebastián Film Festival and the 2014 Nordic Council Film Prize. His latest film, Woman at War, tells the story of Halla, an environmental activist fighting the local aluminum industry in Iceland through acts of sabotage, some of them large-scale enough to become the focus of international intelligence services. Her plans are thrown into disarray by a letter she receives finally granting her permission to adopt a girl from the Ukraine.

Benedikt Erlingsson, ©Juan Camillo Estrada. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

Tell us a bit about your background as a filmmaker.

I've been making films for 30 years, they're just not all films, they're called plays. I'm an old dog in show business. I've been involved in story-telling [briefly interrupts the interview to open the door to someone delivering chocolate] Sorry, I turned this whole hotel upside down because I wanted chocolate - I'm a theatre director and actor. I began performing one-man shows then did one with Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir [Halla in Woman at War] . I was into storyteeling theatre, Dario Fo's work...I started writing film scripts in 2003 and made my first shorts in 2006, 2007.

Both Of Horses and Men and Woman at War have been described by critics as stylish, stylised and quirky. Has your background as a theatre director influenced your approach to film?

Everything comes from something, I'm a storyteller, and like all storytellers, I have a personal style, which bleeds through all my work but it's on a more unconscious level. I don't necessarily think about this, I try to avoid over-analysing it. Of course, things like the musicians [occasionally folk musicians play their instruments, incongruous in the scene and ignored by the other characters] are a theatrical device. In this film, this device is a way to visualise the inner struggle of the character. I think films should turn to theatre today, especially German theatre, it would make them more fun!

Tell us more about casting Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir.

I had her in mind. We first performed together in 1979, on stage at the National Theatre of Iceland, in a children's play. She had the lead part. It was a play about domestic violence, a very Scandinavian theme for children! The idea was that the adults played the children and vice versa. I was playing a schoolmaster and she was a housewife or mother, and the children characters were played by adults. We performed it for 2 or 3 years, it was slavery! We were brought up in this showbiz slave factory. Her mother was an actress and my mother was a director, we come from the same milieu. Later, she was involved in the punk rock movement, moved to Germany and became a big admirer of Nina Hagen. I began writing for film.

Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir, photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

What inspired you to write about the sabotage of an aluminium plant?

I began to educate myself about climate change in 2013. I understood that our world needs saving. II wanted to make a fairytale about saving the world. More specifically, I wanted to make a feel-good accessible film about this apocalyptic scenario, as it's a complicated issue. I wanted the film to save the world! I wanted to talk about those everyday heroes, like [Swedish student climate activist] Greta Thunberg, for example, who is a real leader. She's effectively highlighted the size of this challenge and how slowly we are reacting. And the instrument we have to react with is the State. Some would say this film is advocating civil disobedience or sabotage but ultimately the power is with the State. The power it has means it's the producers' problem. You cannot look at the consumers anymore and say small, individual changes matter. It's too late and that would take too long. The State has to make it the producers' problem. We need to act like we're in a war, we're in war against our lifestyles. We have to introduce rules and regulations. I do think a shift is possible, we are cognitive beings, we can change our minds. We are in a very interesting phase, it's a happy thing to be part of a generation that can save the world.

Should the film motivate us to take action?

It's one of the biggest challenges of art to be morally good. I have an artist friend who said it's impossible to make art that has good intentions and yet, he said, this is the first piece of art he's seen that he believes has good intentions. In a way, it is a critique of dystopias. We should actually be making utopias. We need more hope in this fight. I can recommend a beautiful film from Macedonia called Honeyland, a masterpiece about the human dilemma.

How has having your films on the festival circuit helped you?

In the European filmmaking model, you need co-producers, so it's helpful if you have some kind of stamp. There are so many films made, so festivals are a way to help the audience choose - I don't know if they truly take notice or choose to go see a film because it won an award at a festival - but it gives it that level of recognition. I struggle a lot financing my films even with my excellent producer Marianne Slot, but now these honours from abroad will hopefully make me more acceptable to the Icelandic Film Centre!

How was your experience of Clermont-Ferrand?

My first experience of Clermont-Ferrand was in 2009 when I had my short film Naglinn selected. The team was initially disappointed because they thought my name was Benedicte, so assumed I was a woman. Everybody was disappointed that there was this bald man that had come instead. It was a fantastic experience. It was good preparation for everything that came afterwards. Nobody knew who I was, and I got a Special Mention for this film. I was even invited onto the stage but there was a misunderstanding, so I was just sat there on the third balcony. I was flabbergasted, I was so intrigued by the focus that I got. I was in tears seeing this panel, this audience of French intellectuals that all watched my short film, all wanted to talk about it and analyse it. I had to hold my tears, I was like a little child. I was overwhelmed by this film culture and love of film. I'm very grateful for my first experience in Clermont-Ferrand.

At times perhaps overly quirky, Woman at War is a moving and upbeat portrait of a regular woman who manages to upset a powerful industry, and make a mark on the overwhelmingly ambitious but much needed fight against climate change. Erlingsson's decision of making his protagonist a woman in her fifties and the determinedly hopeful tone he injects in the story make Woman at War a refreshingly bold second feature, offering us the same stunning, sweeping tableaux as Of Horses And Men.

WOMAN AT WAR WILL BE RELEASED IN CINEMAS ON 3 MAY 2019. More about upcoming screenings on the film's website.
An American version of the film is in the pipeline, directed by and starring Jodie Foster! Benedikt will be involved in a "friendly" way...

Young and Alive / L'Epoque at LFF 2018

Abla Kandalaft — 2018-10-16T21:28:09Z

Young and Alive is not quite an apt translation of the original title of this film, L'Epoque, which in its subtitles has been translated as the more accurate "our times". Director Matthieu Bareyre was keen to stress this during the Q&A session that followed the screening at the London Film Festival.

The documentary had made its debut in Locarno and this was only its second screening. The first sequence is a series of still shots of French emblems and assorted images of political authority and dominance, or identity as the country likes to project, the statue of Marianne on Place de la Republique, Macron's laughing mouth, the Arc de Triomphe, interspersed with meaningful shots of shop windows and big advertising billboards underlining the rampant capitalistic spirit at play in the city. All to the sound of technobeats, all shot at night.

It's a powerful start to the doc. The monuments, the shops, the posters all appear as crushing monoliths, looming over the audience. This is the setting for the real subjects of Bareyre's documentary, young Parisians, sharing their hopes, dreams, aspirations and most particularly their anger and frustrations with the filmmaker. Mathieu Bareyre, who'd only shot one short (doc) - Nocturnes - before this decided to work on L'Epoque during the week that followed the attacks on Charlie Hebdo and the murder of the paper's writers. Bareyre felt that things were going to kick off, that the aftermath of the attacks would see certain social repercussions that he wanted to capture and expose. One of these was the convenient eclipsing of issues that affected young people in France most directly - poverty, unemployment, career aspiration, racism, police violence - by terrorism that the media and the political class positioned as the one major danger facing the nation, one that justified all sorts of draconian surveillance laws and the sidelining of urgent social and economic problems.

Shooting at night on and off from May 2015 through to the presidential elections of May 2017, during protests, raves, clashes with the police, drunken escapades and friendly gatherings on the banks of the Seine, Bareyre found an eclectic mix of young people to interview: debauched business school graduates, talented freestyling rappers, eloquent cité-dwellers asking for journalists to come and see what life is like inside the sprawling housing estates, giddy couples, DJs, young protesters denouncing police brutality and racism...

It's mostly - business school students and their antics aside - a truly impressive line-up of talking heads. Bareyre managed to get them all to let lose, speak freely and share their innermost thoughts, and they do so with humour, talent, eloquence and intelligence. I at least left feeling both sad and angry at the abuses of power that they highlight and truly hopeful that they are part of the make-up of the new generation.

Bareyre has certainly made a daring film, in which the implicit denunciation of police violence and the repressive atmosphere of the post-Charlie Hebdo period will I imagine cause some degree of controversy. But hopefully it will enjoy a wide distribution. Nearly three years in the making, with 22 months of post-production, L'Epoque is a very moving, vibrant and courageous effort, especially given the fact that this is Bareyre's first feature. It will hopefully be the first of many!

For updates on the film, check its Facebook page. You can contact us directly or tweet us @mydylarama if you have any questions you'd like to ask director Matthieu Bareyre.

Akasha at LFF 2018

Abla Kandalaft — 2018-10-16T14:02:11Z

Making the most of the seasonal break in the conflict in Sudan, when the heavy rains and mud make it impossible to fight, filmmaker Hajooj Kuka enrolled the dwellers of a village in the Nuba Mountains to make this offbeat comedy that celebrates the resilience and spirit of those village communities.

Following an argument with his exasperated girlfriend Lina, Adnan legs it out of the bedroom leaving behind Nancy, his beloved AK-47. He ends up running into Adsi, who's dodging the Kasha, the yearly round-up of soldiers, that Adnan has escaped. The truants then embark on a 24h risky yet comedic quest to reunite Adnan with his gun and with Lina.

Kuka's previous film was the documentary Beats of the Antonov, which focused on the way music in particular helped local populations in Sudan deal with and navigate life in a war zone. According to him, the people were constantly and actively seeking out the moments in which they could party. It's this lightness and emphasis on celebration that motivated him to make his next film a comedy.

During those in-between periods of respite in the rainy season, Kuka organised drama workshops with young people in the area. He ended up making Akasha with those very same people, who make up the cast and crew. Kamal Ramadan who plays Adnan was the sound engineer on their previous shorts and Kuka thought it only fair that he should finally get an acting part, so cast him as the lead. In the words of its director, the film is a "work of love" for and by this community. Kuka filmed longer scenes just to allow everyone to appear in the film. He even cast Makala as the bride to give her the chance to experience the wedding celebration she never had in real life.

The film is impressive on many levels. Kuka's cinematography highlights the beauty of the landscape and, considering the very numerous hurdles the team faced, they created well polished, technically impressive film. It's also funny and well-crafted, with moments of sharp observational comedy, paying homage in particular to the resilience and the powerful social and political role of the women in that part of the country.

Find more information on the film's official website or get in touch with us directly if you have any questions you'd like to ask the director.

Entretien avec Amel Guellaty, réalisatrice du film Black Mamba

Clotilde Couturier — 2018-09-19T17:57:00Z

"Black Mamba" présenté au Festival de Clermont-Ferrand 2018 :
http://my.clermont-filmfest.com/index.php?&m=104&c=3&id_film=200066481&o=178

Dans la sélection Regards d'Afrique :
http://my.clermont-filmfest.com/index.php ?m=104&c=178?lang=1&n1=c&n2=a&n3=14&id_prog=100000118

Comment avez-vous eu l'inspiration pour Black mamba ?

J'avais envie d'écrire une histoire avec un personnage féminin fort. J'ai aussi une esthétique assez sombre, violente, sale.... Étant scénariste et réalisatrice, l'écriture et l'image vont de pair, et l'un influence l'autre. J'écris au fil de mes idées sans vraiment savoir où je vais. Quand j'ai commencé à écrire je ne savais pas comment finirait mon film. J'ai une idée et ensuite je me renseigne, puis je vais chercher l'inspiration pour construire mes personnages. Je fais le travail un peu à l'envers...

A quel point étiez-vous intéressée par les questions d'émancipation féminine dans ce film ?

J'espère avoir fait un film féministe. On pense la femme en générale, surtout la femme arabe et encore plus spécialement la femme arabe voilée, comme un être faible, écrasé par l'homme et par la société. J'avais envie de raconter une histoire opposée à ces préjugés. Je pense que l'émancipation féminine est le réel sujet de ce film. La femme Tunisienne est admirable dans sa force et dans son combat pour exister et faire respecter ses droits dans notre société mais le chemin est encore long. J'avais envie de dépeindre une autre réalité, de jouer avec les idées préconçues des spectateurs. Des spectateurs Tunisiens mais surtout des spectateurs occidentaux.

Comment avez-vous rencontré l'actrice principale, Sarra Hannachi ?

J'ai rencontré Sarra alors que j'étais directrice de casting pour un autre film. J'avais déjà écrit une version de Black Mamba et lorsque je l'ai vu il m'a semblé évident que le rôle était fait pour elle. Elle dégageait une certaine force qui me rappelait mon personnage principal. Elle m'a tellement plu, qu'alors même qu'elle passait son casting, je me suis mise à lui parler de mon film.

Qu'est-ce qui vous intéressait dans le rapport au mariage ? Pourquoi avez-vous choisi de ne pas nous montrer son fiancé à l'écran ?

Le mariage est encore, en Tunisie, un passage obligatoire pour toutes les femmes au risque de devenir "une veille fille" ou en d'autres termes une honte pour la famille. Dès l'enfance on inculque aux petites filles que la réussite c'est le mariage, que le bonheur c'est le mariage, que le but ultime c'est le mariage. Il est impossible pour la société d'accepter qu'une fille ne veuille pas se marier, alors même qu'on lui présente un homme idéal. En Tunisie, (et ailleurs) la liberté de la femme existe, mais pas la liberté de chaque femme. C'est une valeur qui n'est pas personnelle, pas inhérente à chacune d'entre elles. Le bonheur de la femme est pré-emballé, déjà conçu et réfléchi. Elle sera heureuse en ayant un mari bon et aimant, des enfants et une belle maison. Elle pourra même choisir un métier de femme qui lui convient. L'idée qu'une femme puisse être heureuse d'une manière différente est rejetée par la société actuelle.
Dans le film le fiancé est secondaire, qu'il soit beau ou moche, bon ou mauvais, drôle ou ennuyeux, ne change rien. Peut importe qui il est, il n'est pas ce qu'elle veut. Le déchirement, le choix du personnage principal se fait entre sa passion et sa famille.

Enfin, comment est perçu le film en Tunisie et dans le reste du monde ? Avez-vous pu le faire diffuser partout ?

Pour l'instant je n'ai pas eu de problème de diffusion.
Hormis Clermont- Ferrand, le film est passé durant les Journées Cinématographiques de Carthage à Tunis, ainsi qu'à Marseille et à Hyeres (au festival Films Femmes Méditerrannée) où il à gagné le prix du public. Prochainement il sera visible au festival "Elles font leur cinéma" à Rouen.

Atlas Vision Productions - NextFilms Distribution

Naila and the Uprising @DocHouse

Abena Clarke — 2018-08-24T14:03:51Z

Naila and the Uprising was a DocHouse screening.

It's rare that a film makes me so angry that I can't seem to describe it without a rant summarising it as ‘o the injustice!' but that really was the effect of Julia Bacha's film. Opening scene: mum, grown-up son, living room, baby pictures, embarrassment. This is familiar. That's how a lot of Naila's story feels: familiar. She's just a regular woman, a passionate proactive patriot, mother, friend, wife, sister. She's a women's libber (this is the 80s), an outspoken feminist, who believes that she as a woman cannot be free, while her country is under occupation. And thus the story begins.
30 years ago, Naila was a young woman, a grassroots activist, wife and mother, who worked within the women-led organisations which imagined, coordinated and led the nonviolent resistance of the first intifada. Their work brought the Israeli government to the negotiating table with representatives of the the Palestinian people for the first time. As much of the male leadership had been effectively silenced, via exile and imprisonment - like Naila's own husband - many women understood that their community desperately needed their involvement in order to win their freedom struggle. Or as Naila put it 'the occupation will not end if we stay home'.

Bacha employs news footage from the time from a range of European countries, as well as from Australia and the US, cartoon sequences stylistically reminiscent of Persepolis' simple but exquisite artistry, and of course, the voices and stories of the activist women of Palestine to craft this incredible tale. Her film's particular power, perhaps, is successfully reminding us of a different, more hopeful time. For the Palestinian people, and for the world. Naila's Israeli collaborators tell the story of sympathetic Israeli women's movements who stood in solidarity with these Palestinian women organising for liberty, of Israeli journalists with whom Naila also worked with, who tirelessly informed the Israeli people of the injustices perpetuated in their name. A time when the US president - a republican at that - was lauded for a particularly progressive, productive stance on Palestine.

My fury stemmed from learning about the Accords. Ultimately, we discover, the fruit of the women's successful organising was eaten by men. Men - Norwegian and Palestinian - who could not imagine a triumphant, female-led political intervention with such global ramifications, secretly hijacked the negotiations and absolutely sidelined Palestine's women leaders. How the women reacted was interesting. But the impact on the peace process was catastrophic.
If you remember watching male freedom fighters dressing up as women in the Battle of Algiers, you should watch Naila and the Uprising, where women pose as concerned neighbours and drop resistance flyers into food parcels. Naila was and is an organiser, but she was not the leadership, who are also represented in the film. She was one of many thousands of women based within and organising resistance in communities living through occupation. Naila, like so many others, engaged in the creation of parallel institutions, boycotts, cooperative farms, non-violent nation-building work whose work has largely been forgotten in the story of the peace process.
Naila and the Uprising is must-see viewing for anyone who likes a great story told brilliantly. And strong women everywhere.

Credible Likeable Superstar Role Model - East End Film Festival 2016

Ryan Ormonde — 2016-06-16T13:41:08Z

London-based performance artist Bryony Kimmings first came to public attention with 7 Day Drunk, a show put together under the influence of alcohol. The subject of new documentary Credible Likeable Superstar Role Model is another ‘real world experiment' by Kimmings, who is now under the influence of her nine year-old niece, Taylor.

As an idea for a theatre show, this is brilliant: enough with Miley Cyrus! (That's 2013 twerking Miley Cyrus, not 2015 gender queer activist Miley Cyrus.) Let's come up with a pop star created by a child and reflecting a child's particular interests - like palaeontology, outer space and sweets.

Taylor is along for the intergalactic time-travelling ride, making Kimmings a shoe-in for the title of Best Aunty Ever. In the spirit of Robin Williams as Mrs Doubtfire (sort of), Kimmings gamely dresses up a sexually unthreatening figurehead for ‘tweens' (pre-teenage children). The sensibly named Catherine Bennett - or ‘C.B.' - is awkward, intelligent and, helpfully for Kimmings, not that good at singing.

All of this seems progressive, feminist, necessary and entertaining. The questions that arise are more to do with modes of presentation. Is this film a ‘popumentary' for a fictional singer? A documentation of an art piece? An extended trailer for a theatre show?
At one point in the film we are told that the purpose of the live show at Soho Theatre is to help publicise C.B.'s career. To really affect change, C.B. needs to succeed in the real world. Aunty and niece have even drawn up ‘Fame Aims' including a million YouTube views.

And yet the glimpses we get of the stage show (described on Kimmings' website as ‘not for kids') seem more interesting and complex than the Taylor-narrated story here. A scene in the documentary shows Taylor lying down with eyes closed and headphones on as her aunty tells the live audience things that are not for Taylor's ears. The stage set looks imaginative and mysterious; the costumes include silver armour in adult and child sizes, emulating warrior queen Boadicea.

In keeping with contemporary cultural (and commercial) modes, Credible… is clearly a multi-platform project. You might encounter C.B. on social media or when she visits your primary school. You can watch her YouTube video, download her music or see her do a gig. And there is this film too, at the very least an inspiring document of the project revealing the emotional impact on its creator, as well as a chance to watch C.B.'s hilarious debut music video in full. The East London Festival is presenting the screening with a Q&A, so it will be interesting to hear if there is still steam in the C.B. engine now that Taylor has progressed from tween to teen.

Credible Likeable Superstar Role Model has its world premiere at East London Film Festival on 2 July at the Hackney Picturehouse. See website for details.