Passion being the key word

BY MIREYA CASTAÑEDA—Granma International staff writer—

• FIGURES demonstrate that within Europe itself movie theaters have been taken over by Hollywood movies, including in France, where the defense of its cinematography is particularly strong. For that reason, for close to 10 years French filmmakers and actors always express their feelings when they have an opportunity to screen their films and appreciate audience pleasure of their work.

This 2005 has been no different. In a packed Chaplin cinema (as is the case in all three functions), young actress Vahina Giocante introduced Lila dit ça (What Lila Says), Ziad Zoueri’s second film, based on the bestseller of the same name and in which she plays the leading role.

"It’s really moving to see the theater full," said Giocante, "and I’m sure that they are going to like the film because it it’s a sweet love story and there’s lots of love."

This 2004 film was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the last edition of the Sundance Festival, directed by US actor and director Robert Redford.

The acting of Giocante and her co-protagonist Mohammed Kgouas and the story, both tender and violent, was recompensed with a lengthy ovation from the public.

Thus the French Cinema Festival in Cuba (March 11- April 15) got under way, given that Boudu – thanks to the generosity of its director, likewise actor Gérard Junot, screened in Havana a few days after its premiere in Paris – was very well received.

The same thing occurred last year when Christophe Barratier, doubtless the major organizer of this festival, screened his successful movie The Choir (nominated for an Oscar), in the same way.

Junot, who debuted in 1978 with the film Bronzés (Bronzed) by Patrice Leconte, attained fame and success in 1984 when he became France’s most celebrated policeman en Pinot simple flic (Pinot, a Simple Cop), also his first feature as a director. He continued with his acting career and in 1988 returned to the screen with Sans peur et sans reproche (Without Fear and Without Reproach). In 2002 he made Monsieur Batignole and in 2005 premiered Boudu, with which the Junot-Gerard Depardieu-Catherine Frot trio have defied the saying that second attempts are never any good (it is a remake of the 1932 Jean Renoir classic Boudu Saved from Drowning).

While being outside the time frame of the films being screened – all from 2003-2005 – another comedy, Les ripoux (My New Partner), produced in 1984 by Claude Zidi, with Philippe Noiret and Thierry Lhermitte in the central roles has caught the attention of the public.

The film was presented by Zidi himself. After various years as photographic director and assistant director, made his first feature film in 1971, a comedy called Les bidasses en folies. That was followed up in the same genre with La course á l’échalotte with Pierre Richard in 1975, in 1983 Banzi with Louis de Funés and Colouche, and in 1998 Asterix and Obelix against Caesar, with Gerard Depardieu and Christian Clavier.

"Comedy is the genre that I have preferred since childhood," affirms Zidi in Havana, "I feel that it is a necessary genre." Asked about success, he replied: "I have made successful films and I’ve also had failures, naturally I don’t have a formula for that, just to film and let people enjoy themselves without stopping thinking.

Another director who accompanied his film was Sam Karmann. This is A la petite semaine which, although is approaches characters who have been in prison, is not a detective movie, but a story of friendship, intermingled dreams. It is his second feature after Kennedy et moi in 1998 and Karmann received the Cannes Palme d’Or and an Oscar in 1992 for his short Omnibus.

Talking to the press, Karmann, who is also – or basically – an actor, explained why "making a film is as difficult and dangerous as climbing a mountain;" perhaps that is why, as a director, he leaves so much time between films. "In 1993 I had many recompenses for Omnibus and that was a great encouragement, I won all those big prizes, but nevertheless, I couldn’t film the second short. As you can see, anything is possible."

The long list of films includes Classified X by Mark Daniels, with screenplay by African-American Melvin Van Peebles, who explained in Havana that the documentary was filmed in France, although it is in English, "because in the United States they wanted me to change my point of view. He commented that once it was completed in 1998, it was sold throughout Europe and is also being screened in his country now, but on a small cable chain, not on the large-circuit ones.

Classified X (53 minutes), offers a rigorous analysis of the African-American presence in Hollywood movies and is narrated by Van Peebles himself (Chicago, 1932), who is also a novelist, producer and musician.

Famous names of French cinema in this festival include Chabrol, Annaud, Leconte and Tavernier. Chabrol’s works include La fleur du mal, presented by the young actress Mélanie Doutey. The film – perhaps not the great director’s most successful – has great actresses in its central roles, including Suzanne Flon and Nathalie Baye.

Doutey, having confided that she felt very intimidated before the shooting, being under the orders of a legend and alongside sacred cows such as Flon, found herself highly motivated by the "special energy in the work" of both of them. "They encouraged me and moreover, on the set Chabrol creates a very familial atmosphere with the presence of his wife and children and achieves a very relaxed environment."

No less interesting was the screening of the fiction short Le carnet rouge (The Red Notebook), defended by its director, Mathieu Simonet and the actress Antoinette Laquiere, which on 15 minutes expresses the idea that a book does not belong to anyone but is for everyone. Simonet, son of actor Jacques Perrin, made his movie debut in 2003, in the role of Axel in Chabrol’s Merci pour le chocolat but was also the photographer in the great documentary Nomads of the Wind.