myDylarama

Short of the Week: Nefta Football Club, dir. Yves Piat

Abla Kandalaft — 2020-02-01T16:05:08Z

In a Tunisian village, children are playing football on a wasteland. Meanwhile, Abdallah and Mohammed come across a donkey with headphones on his ears and bags full of a white powder on his back. The two young brothers decide to bring those bags back to their village.

This amusing, sweet short film by Yves Piat received the audience prize at Clermont-Ferrand 2019 and has recently enjoyed both Cesar and Oscar nominations. Thanks to the Univers Cine team, you can now catch it online with English subtitles.

Here's our interview with director Yves Piat from last year's Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival.

More about the film here.

Interview with Jian Luo, director of What Do You Know About the Water and the Moon

Abla Kandalaft, Brasserie du Court team — 2019-05-18T10:01:42Z

Interview with the Chinese filmmaker Jian Luo about her short film What do you Know About the Water and the Moon? selected as part of the 2019 International Competition at Clermont-Ferrand. A video directed by the students of the ARFIS École in collaboration with the Brasserie du Court and Mydylarama.

During an attempted abortion, a girl gives birth to a live jellyfish.

A magic realist film that's both hypnotic and troubling from a very promising and original young director.

Interview with Yann Berlier & Lola Cambourieu, directors of Automne Malade

Brasserie du Court team — 2019-05-13T09:42:14Z

Interview with Yann Berlier & Lola Cambourieu about their short film Automne Malade selected as part of the 2019 National Competition (F5 programme) at the Clermont-Ferrand Film Festival. A video directed by the students of the ARFIS École in collaboration with the Brasserie du Court and Mydylarama.

Troubled by her mother's sickness, Milène leaves Paris to prepare her exams. Seeking calm on a farm in the Auvergne, she struggles to concentrate. The surrounding countryside and her encounter with Momo help her forget about her problems, but then autumn arrives. Time is running out.

Café court / Expresso Video - Yann Berlier & Lola Cambourieu from ClermontFd Short Film Festival on Vimeo.

Interview with Nick Jordan, director of Stratum

ARFIS, Elise Loiseau — 2019-04-20T10:20:30Z

Interview with the British filmmaker and Clermont favourite Nick Jordan about his short film Stratum.

Stratum is a film that navigates through post-industrial landscapes on the European Route of Industrial Heritage, from Britain's abandoned South Yorkshire coal seams to the culturally re-purposed collieries of the Ruhr Valley, Germany, via the former coal-mining region of Wallonia, Belgium. Contrasting the past and present, contemporary scenes are combined with archival film material, alongside audio narration from Miserie au Borinage (directed by Henri Storck and Joris Ivens, 1934), made in the depths of the Great Depression.
Official Selection Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival 2019 - Lab Competition

Café court / Expresso Video - Nick Jordan from ClermontFd Short Film Festival on Vimeo.

More about Nick's work on his website.

Interview with Paul Szynol, director of The Pull

Abla Kandalaft, ARFIS — 2019-04-20T10:00:48Z

Interview with the American filmmaker Paul Szynol about his film, the moving and ambitious short "The Pull".

After serving time in a New Hampshire jail, a freed inmate faces the pull of addiction.

Café court / Expresso Video - Paul Szynol from ClermontFd Short Film Festival on Vimeo.

More about Paul's work on his website.
Follow him on Twitter @paulszynol.

The video was directed by the students of the ARFIS École in colaboration with the Brasserie du Court and Mydylarama.

Interview with Yves Piat, director of Nefta Football Club

Abla Kandalaft, ARFIS, Brasserie du Court team — 2019-04-09T16:51:57Z

In a Moroccan village, children play football on an improvised field. Meanwhile, Abdallah and Mohammed come across a donkey with a headphone on his hears and bags full of a white powder on his back. The two young brothers decide to bring those bags to their village.

TRAILER - NEFTA FOOTBALL CLUB from Les Valseurs on Vimeo.

Interview with Yves Piat, director of the award-winning hilarious short Nefta Football Club.

Café court / Expresso Video - Yves Piat from ClermontFd Short Film Festival on Vimeo.

Nefta Football Club won the Audience Award (National Competition) at the Clermont-Ferrand ISFF 2019. The film is available on vimeo on demand.

For more info on the film and its festival dates, visit the official Facebook page.

Alex Feggans, director of Jackrabbit

Abla Kandalaft, ARFIS — 2019-04-09T16:02:02Z

Based on a true story. An Italian backpacker stops at a remote gas station in Australia and is confronted with a strange situation.

Interview with Alex Feggans, director of the amusing, genre-bending Australian short Jackrabbit.

Jackrabbit was screened at the Clermont-Ferrand International Film Festival 2019.
To find out more about Alex's work or to request a screener, check out his website.

ClermontFF2019 Interview with Jonathan Hodgson, director of Roughhouse

Abla Kandalaft, Brasserie du Court team — 2019-03-11T20:01:21Z

In a strange town, the relationship of a group of friends is tested when a new person joins them. The manipulative personality of the new group member has worrying consequences and challenges the loyalty of the friends.

Are there any elements of this story that are autobiographical? Are the friends based on people you know?

The story is inspired by an episode from my late teens when I was living in a student flat in Liverpool. Some of the characters are based on people I knew at the time, although I have changed the names and appearance so that no one is identifiable. I have also altered a lot of the physical locations and story events, but the psychological journey is much the same. We were all good friends at first, but a problem arose when one member of the household couldn't pay the rent and seemed quite happy to let the rest of us to pay his share and do nothing in return. We were young and naive and didn't know how to resolve things in a mature way so things soon got very out of hand.

Why did you choose these setting and time?

I prefer to make films about things I know about, rather than making up fantasies. I could have set the story in a different place and time, but there didn't seem much point when I could make a more interesting and authentic narrative by visually recreating a place and time that I had direct experience of and which had made a very strong impression on me.

Can you tell us a bit about your animation style? What are your influences or inspirations?

The look of the film is largely inspired by the drawings and paintings I was producing as an art student in the late 70s, when I was particularly influenced by German Expressionism. I still have a lot of the artwork from that time lying around and I was interested in recycling it and giving it a second life. The style of the animation bears more than a passing resemblance to this artwork, although it was unfeasible to use analogue artworking techniques. Instead I relied heavily on digital software such as TV Paint, Photoshop and After Effects. For the colour I was inspired by printmaking techniques such as screen printing and lithography that use a limited range of transparent colours, where two colours might be overlaid to create a third. Most of the scenes have a unique palette based on two colours such as green and red or orange and blue. The choice of colour reflects the emotional content of the scene so that happier scenes have stronger, warmer colours, while the unhappier sections tend to have cooler and more muted colours. The one exception to this rule is the party scene, which borrows from the colour palette of my student film Nightclub, which was painted with food colouring, because at the time I couldn't afford to buy coloured inks.The story of Roughhouse is very dialogue-driven with a lot of lip-synch so it needed a more traditional animation technique than some of my other films. I was working with a team of animators from Studio Train-Train so the animation had to be much more carefully planned out. For instance, the characters had to be fully developed at the preproduction stage to help the animators understand who each character was, whereas if I had been doing all the animation myself I would probably have been more spontaneous and made everything up as I went along.

How did you end up making films with both French and British partners?

For the last 20 years, funding for short animation has been virtually non-existent in the UK. There are a few schemes offering small amounts of money, which I applied for, but I was unsuccessful so I initially decided to fund the film myself. I worked on the film on and off for a few years, but it was always on the back burner and didn't progress very far. While attending a European animation festival I noticed that many of the films had French funding so I decided to try and find a French producer. I made contact with Olivier Catherin and eventually he passed my proposal on to Richard Van Den Boom at Papy3D Productions who became the French producer of the film. As I had already spent a lot of time developing the film prior to securing French funding, we agreed that the film should be an English/French co-production with my own company Hodgson Films coming in as the UK producer.

Would you say that the short film format has given you any particular freedom?

I tend to make very personal films and I prefer working with the short animation format, which allows me more freedom of expression as a director. A longer length film will require a bigger budget and inevitably more people will want to have a say in the creative process. Also when making a short film you can usually be much looser and more experimental with the technique and narrative. The longer the film, the more you need to concern yourself with traditional filmmaking conventions such as story structure and character development and the visual treatment might need to be more refined to avoid mentally fatiguing your audience, whereas with a short film you can be as rough and expressive as you like.

Roughhouse was shown in International Competition.
You can find more of Jonathan's work on his Vimeo page.

ClermontFF2019 Interview with Vincent Lambe, director of Detainment

Brasserie du Court team, Clotilde Couturier — 2019-03-10T21:27:46Z

Detainment is based on transcripts of the interrogation of 10 year-olds Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, who murdered toddler James Bulger in 1993.

How did you learn about children's transcripts?

I was 12 when it happened and I grew up hearing about the case. I could never understand how these two ten-year-old boys could commit such a horrific crime. A lot of people will say they were simply “evil”. I think it's easier to label them “evil” than to try to understand how two ten-year-old boys could commit such a horrific crime. But I wanted to learn more and I started reading everything I could find on the case. I eventually got to the interview transcripts and I felt I saw something that not everyone was seeing, but I obviously had apprehensions about making the film as it is such a sensitive story. The public outrage surrounding the case was unprecedented. It has provoked universal grief and anger, which even after 25 years, is still very much evident today. So, when deciding to adapt the interviews as a 30-minute drama, it was very important to me that details were accurate and that the film was entirely factual with no embellishments whatsoever.

Why did you want to weave together the interrogations and scene reconstructions?

The film intercuts between Jon and Robert's interviews as they took place at the same time and at certain points, we flashback to the day in order to tell parts of the story. By condensing over 15 hours of interviews to a 30-minute drama, we really just get a glimpse of what happened during the interview procedure. I found that writing it was a bit like fitting pieces of a puzzle together, trying to get the pace and structure of the story right, but everything in the film is entirely factual. We did a number of test screenings with audiences which included people who remembered the case and had been affected by it as well as international audiences who had never heard of the case before. The feedback they gave us was invaluable and really helped to shape the film.

Why were you interested in the parents' presence during the interrogations?

I think the presence of the parents was particularly significant during Jon's interviews. The detectives felt that Jon had a desperate need to confess, but that he was terrified his mother wouldn't love him anymore if he told the truth. When Jon feels cornered, he becomes extremely emotional, he's up out of his chair, crying hysterically, he wails against his mother and at one point, he even throws himself in the lap of the detectives for comfort. The detectives felt that Jon had a desperate need to confess, but that his mother's reassurances were making it more difficult for him to tell the truth. The decision is then made for Jon's father to replace the mother during the interviews because he will not offer the same comfort, but both parents played a major role in encouraging their son to tell the truth.

How did you work with the young actors?

I have worked in casting for a long time and as an agent for child actors. Over the course of 12 years, I have done thousands of auditions with children and I've learned a lot about the most effective ways to direct child actors. We did a big casting and saw hundreds of boys for the lead roles. We would get them all to prepare a scene in advance, but then we started improvising with them on the day and took the scene to a different place. In the film, the detectives are quite gentle in their questioning, but for the purpose of the casting, I had told the actor who was reading the lines against them to just completely lose the rag with the boys during the improvisation. It always took them by surprise and suddenly, they weren't acting anymore. We eventually cast two incredibly talented actors, Ely Solan who plays Jon and Leon Hughes who plays Robert. Ely had never acted before and this was his first audition, but he is an extraordinary boy who is very in touch with his emotions, bright and listens. He gives a phenomenal performance as Jon which is one of the most challenging roles I have ever come across for a child actor. Leon is also an exceptionally talented actor who gives a powerful performance as Robert which is another hugely demanding role. Leon had initially auditioned for Jon and he was so convincing that we didn't think he could possibly play Robert, but when we brought him back, he just morphed into the role – he is an extremely versatile actor who takes direction wonderfully. We spent the summer months rehearsing and we all got to know each other really well. Their parents would have explained a basic understanding of the case to them and they had lots of questions for me. We talked a lot about it and they developed an amazing understanding of who these boys were and the dynamic between them, but they also understood the gravity of the case and how sensitive it was and still is. Throughout the rehearsal process, we did a lot of improvisation with the boys in character. So by the time we started shooting, they were extremely well prepared and very comfortable with the roles. It was, of course, a very warm, friendly set for the kids to work on and they really enjoyed the experience. But there's a lot of very challenging emotional scenes throughout the film and I think one of the biggest challenges was for all of those moments to ring true – they needed to be done with an intimacy and a naturalness which makes the audience never feel as if they are being played.

Why did you decide not to include the trial?

The film gives a very brief glimpse of what happened during the interviews, but there is a lot more to the story, such as the trial, which is not possible to tell in the space of a short film. There is a much wider story there and it is a heart-breaking one. It's impossible to show the unimaginable pain of James Bulger's family in the space of a short film and I think it would have been entirely inappropriate to try to do justice to that in such a short space of time, but I have enormous sympathy for them. The film takes a brief look at just one aspect of the case, but I would hope that audiences would be left wanting to know more and start researching the case for themselves.

Would you say that the short film format has given you any particular freedoms?

I think that short films enable the audience to experience a piece of concise cinema that presents characters, events and ideas in a condensed format. As there's no room for padding or overly-long background information, short films can capture an audience's attention straight away and hold it until the final frame. It's a wonderful format which can be very powerful.

Detainment was shown in International Competition.

ClermontFF2019 Entretien avec Vincent Lambe, réalisateur de Detainment (Garde à vue)

Brasserie du Court team, Clotilde Couturier — 2019-03-10T21:08:01Z

Comment avez-vous appris l'existence des transcriptions des interrogatoires de l'affaire James Bulger ?

J'avais douze ans au moment de l'affaire, et j'en ai entendu parler toute ma jeunesse. Je n'arrivais pas à comprendre comment ces deux garçons de dix ans avaient pu commettre un crime aussi horrible. Beaucoup de gens disent qu'ils étaient juste foncièrement « mauvais ». Mais je pense qu'il est plus facile de dire cela que de tenter de comprendre comment des enfants peuvent se rendre coupables d'un tel acte. Et je voulais en savoir plus, alors je me suis mis à lire tout ce que je trouvais sur cette affaire. J'ai fini par mettre la main sur les transcriptions d'interrogatoire et j'ai eu l'impression de voir quelque chose que peu de gens voyaient, tout en ayant, bien sûr, des appréhensions à me lancer dans le film tellement le sujet était sensible. L'indignation générale soulevée par ce crime a été sans précédent, le chagrin et la colère ont été unanimes, et même 25 ans après, ils sont encore palpables. C'est pourquoi, quand j'ai décidé d'adapter ces entretiens en un drame de 30 minutes, je tenais absolument à être précis dans les moindres détails, à ce que le film soit entièrement véridique, sans la moindre fioriture.

Pourquoi avoir intercalé les interrogatoires et les reconstitutions du crime ?

Le film alterne entre les interrogatoires de Jon et de Robert, car ils ont eu lieu en même temps, le tout intercalé de flashbacks sur le jour du crime, afin de raconter des bribes de l'histoire. En condensant 15 heures d'entretiens en 30 minutes, on n'a qu'un aperçu de la procédure d'interrogatoire. En termes d'écriture, c'était un peu comme de rassembler les pièces d'un puzzle, en s'efforçant de respecter le rythme et la structure de l'histoire, mais tout dans le film est complètement fidèle à la réalité. Nous avons fait des projections tests auprès de personnes qui avaient été touchées par l'affaire, et auprès d'un public étranger qui n'en avait jamais entendu parler. Leur retour a été précieux et a fortement influencé le film.

La présence des parents lors des interrogatoires est-elle un sujet qui vous a particulièrement intéressé ?

Je pense que la présence des parents était particulièrement importante lors de l'interrogatoire de Jon. Les détectives voyaient bien que Jon avait terriblement besoin d'avouer son crime, mais qu'il avait peur que sa mère ne l'aime plus s'il racontait la vérité. Quand il est poussé à bout, Jon est très agité, il se lève de son siège, il pleure comme un hystérique, il gémit dans les bras de sa mère, à un moment il se jette sur les genoux d'un policier pour qu'on le réconforte. Les détectives ont jugé que les paroles rassurantes de sa mère allaient à l'encontre de son besoin d'avouer. Il a donc été décidé que le père de Jon la remplacerait pour les interrogatoires, car il ne le rassurait pas autant, mais les deux parents ont joué un rôle décisif et encouragé leur fils à dire la vérité.

Comment avez-vous travaillé avec les jeunes acteurs ?

Je travaille depuis longtemps dans le casting et comme agent pour acteurs-enfants. En 12 ans, j'ai fait passer des milliers d'auditions à des enfants et j'ai appris les techniques les plus efficaces pour diriger les enfants. On a fait un grand casting, et vu des centaines de garçons pour les rôles principaux. On leur demandait de préparer une scène à l'avance, mais lors de l'audition, on les faisait improviser et on faisait évoluer la scène différemment. Dans le film, les détectives sont plutôt gentils quand ils posent les questions, mais pour le casting, j'avais demandé à l'acteur qui donnait la réplique de s'énerver contre les garçons lors de l'impro. Ils étaient pris au dépourvu et réagissaient spontanément. On a fini par sélectionner deux acteurs exceptionnels, Ely Solan, dans le rôle de Jon, et Leon Hughes dans celui de Robert. Ely n'avait jamais joué la comédie, et c'était la première fois qu'il passait une audition, mais c'est un garçon extraordinaire, très connecté à ses émotions, intelligent et attentif. Il campe le rôle de Jon avec brio, et pourtant c'est le rôle le plus difficile que j'aie jamais vu pour un acteur-enfant. Leon a lui aussi un talent d'acteur exceptionnel et son interprétation de Robert, un rôle tout aussi difficile, est fabuleuse. À l'origine, il devait incarner Jon et il était tellement bluffant qu'on ne pensait pas qu'il pourrait jouer Robert, mais quand il est revenu, il s'était glissé dans la peau du personnage – c'est un acteur très polyvalent, qui se laisse merveilleusement bien diriger. On a passé les mois d'été à répéter et on a fini par très bien se connaître. Leurs parents leur avaient vaguement expliqué l'affaire et ils avaient plein de questions à me poser. Nous en avons beaucoup parlé et étudié en profondeur qui étaient ces garçons et quelle était leur relation, mais ils ont aussi compris la gravité de l'histoire et à quel point le sujet était sensible, encore aujourd'hui. Au fil des répétitions, nous avons beaucoup fait improviser les garçons dans leur personnage. Ainsi, au moment du tournage, ils étaient extrêmement bien préparés et très à l'aise dans leur rôle. Pour eux, c'était un cadre de travail très chaleureux et sympathique, et ils ont adoré cette expérience. Mais il y a un certain nombre de scènes très difficiles car très intenses, et la plus grande difficulté consistait, à mon avis, à sonner juste dans ces moments-là – ces scènes devaient avoir assez de profondeur et de naturel pour faire oublier au spectateur qu'elles sont jouées.

Pourquoi avez-vous décidé de ne pas montrer le procès ?

Le film donne un très bref aperçu de ce qui s'est passé lors des interrogatoires, mais l'histoire est bien plus compliquée, notamment celle du procès, qui est impossible à raconter dans le cadre d'un court métrage. Il y a une autre dimension, et elle est tragique. Il est impossible de mettre en scène dans un court métrage la douleur inimaginable de la famille de James Bulger, et je pense qu'il serait déplacé de tenter de le faire en si peu de temps, mais je ressens énormément de compassion pour cette famille. Le film se concentre sur un seul aspect de l'affaire, mais j'espère que le spectateur restera sur sa faim et s'intéressera de plus près à ce drame.

Diriez-vous que le format court vous a donné une certaine liberté ?

Pour moi, les courts métrages offrent au spectateur un condensé de cinéma, qui présente des personnages, des événements et des idées de façon concise. Comme il n'y a pas la place de s'attarder sur le contexte, le court métrage doit capter immédiatement l'attention du spectateur et le garder en haleine jusqu'à la dernière image. C'est un format extraordinaire qui peut être très intense.

Detainment (Garde à vue) a été projeté en compétition internationale.