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LES ULYSSES DU 21ÈME SIÈCLE

(21st Century Ulysses)

71 minutes, 2017
Director : Lidia Peralta GARCIA
Production : Producciones Damira

Morocco is the country with one of the highest rates of emigration in the world. An estimated three million Moroccans live in other countries. Since the first internal migrations in the 1950’s from rural areas to the towns, post-independence Moroccan cinema has recorded and accompanied all the major migratory moments: setting sail in leaking, flimsy boats, life in Europe, the return to Morocco. This documentary, “Les Ulysses du 21ème siècle”, looks at migration through Moroccan films.Album(s) d’Auschwitz” (2011) co-directed with William Karel, “Ethel Rosenberg, la dernière danse” (2003) et “La Rafle du Vel d’Hiv, 50 ans après” (1992).

Lidia PERALTA GARCÍA is a journalist and documentary film-maker. She is currently working at the Faculté de Communication de l’Université Autonome de Barcelone, in Spain. For more than ten years she has been a journalist working on the culture programme Tesis on Canal Sur 2 for Andalusian public television. As a freelance film-maker she has written and directed ten documentaries. She is interested in social questions dealing with the representation of minority groups and North-South relations. She has looked particularly at Africa and the Arab world. Her documentary “A house for Bernarda Alba” won the Art, Heritage and Cultures of the Mediterranean Award at the 2013 PriMed.

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HISTOIRES D’ISRAEL

(Stories about Israel)

53 minutes, 2017
Direction : William KAREL and Blanche FINGER (France)
Production : Roche Productions, Arte (France)

70 years after the Hebrew State was created, ten emblematic Israeli writers (including Amos Oz, David Grossman, Avraham B. Yehoshua) draw up a “state of the nation”: its values, its fears, its contradictions. The writers draw on the permanent tension in which they live as material for their work, which thus reflects all their country’s problems: the weight of the past, the Zionist project, the Palestinians, religion, the army, social tensions, territorial fractures. An original and subjective portrait of Israel, where literature helps us understand geopolitics.


William KAREL was a photographer at the Gamma and Sygma agencies (1973-1983). A large part of his work is devoted to the history of the twentieth century. He specializes in showing the corridors of power and portraits of political figures (Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Margaret Thatcher, François Mitterrand, Nicolas Sarkozy) and cultural personalities (Philip Roth for the American Masters series of PBS). Since 1984, he has made some thirty documentaries on history, politics and culture, including many award winners. Among them: “François Mitterrand, que reste-t-il de nos amours ?” (2015), “Jusqu’au dernier. La destruction des Juifs d’Europe” (2014), “Album(s) d’Auschwitz” (2011) co-directed with Blanche Finger, “Barack Obama. Au coeur de la maison blanche” (2012), “Looking for Nicolas Sarkozy” (2011), “Philip Roth, sans complexe” (2010). An amused yet passionate observer of his contemporaries, in 2003 he received the Europa Gold Prize for a lifetime’s work.

Blanche FINGER is a scriptwriter and director. Her list of documentary credits include: “Jusqu’au dernier: la destruction des Juifs d’Europe” (2014), “Album(s) d’Auschwitz” (2011) co-directed with William Karel, “Ethel Rosenberg, la dernière danse” (2003) et “La Rafle du Vel d’Hiv, 50 ans après” (1992).

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AU DELÀ DE L’OBJECTIF : LACROIX, DALI

(Beyond the lens: Lacroix, Dalí)

56 minutes, 2018
Director : Céline FORMENTIN (France) and Antonio PEREZ MOLERO (Spain)
Production : Inicia Films, Corporació Catalana de Mitjans Audiovisuals (Spain)

On August 8th 1970 Marc and Thérèse Lacroix, a couple of photographers, were celebrating their wedding anniversary in Cadaqués. A chance meeting with the painter Salvador Dalì transformed their life forever.

Céline FORMENTIN is a script-writer and director. For the past ten years she has made documentaries with a particular interest in films about culture. She has also written other documentaries.

Antonio PÉREZ MOLERO is a script-writer, director and DoP. His list of credits include the documentaries “The interpreter” (2016 57 minutes and 72 minutes – Best Documentary Award at Bilbao), “Colgados de un sueño” (2012 “Hanging on a Dream” 52 minutes – Best Documentary Award FECICAM 2013), “4 Seasons estacions” (2011 “4 Seasons” 52 minutes Finalist Goya Award 2012) and “El Fin de la espera” (2009 “The End of the Waiting” 52 minutes).

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THE OSLO DIARIES

98 minutes, 2018
Direction : Mor LOUSHY et Daniel SIVAN (Israel)
Production : Medalia Productions (Israel), Intuitive Pictures Productions (Canada)

In 1992, when Israeli-Palestinian relations were at a very low point and any communication was punishable
by prison, a small group of Israelis and Palestinians gathered in Oslo, secretly and outside any legal
framework. Although these meetings, known today as the Oslo Accords, have changed the Middle East forever, their only trace is the journals held by the negotiators.

Mor LOUSHY is an Israeli film-maker. Her first film “Israel Ltd” (2009), was shown at the IDFA International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam and then distributed round the world. Her 2015 documentary, “Censored Voices” won the Ophir for Best Documentary (Israel’s Oscars) and was shown at the Sundance Film Festival, at the London Film Festival and at IDFA. Director Daniel SIVAN has the following films to his credit: “Nivdal” (short 2005), “Monkey Business” (2006), “The Life and Death of Gotel Botel” (2009) and “Poisoned” (2011).

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MISSING FETINE

75 minutes, 2017
Réalisation : Yeliz SHUKRI (Chypre)
Production : Tetraktys Films, Cyprus Cinema Advisory Committee (Chypre)

Forced to marry at a very young age, Fetine Memish had to live in a foreign country and never saw her family or her homeland again. Her fate, like that of thousands of other girls exiled in similar circumstances, remained a mystery. Until the day her brother’s granddaughter embarked on a serious investigation to find her.

Yeliz SHUKRI was born in Australia but moved to Cyprus in her childhood, when the checkpoints dividing the country were opened. Since then she has worked in television and film production, making films which help promote unity, peace and understanding between Cypriot communities. Yeliz works for the Cypriot national television, CyBC, and as a freelance director making documentaries. Since 2017 she has been a member of the board of the Cyprus Refugee Council, an independent not-for-profit organisation which helps refugees, asylum-seekers, the detained, victims of slavery and survivors of torture. “Missing Fetine” is her second feature-length film.

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LES PIEDS-NOIRS D’ALGÉRIE, UNE HISTOIRE FRANÇAISE

(Pieds-noirs of Algeria, a French Story)

75 minutes, 2017
Director : Jean-François DELASSUS (France)
Production : Roche Productions (France)

In 1962, when Algeria declared independence after a civil war which had torn the country apart, nearly a million French people living in Algeria were forced to leave. Leaving the land where they were born, these men, women and their children arrived in France, a “fatherland” which most of them scarcely knew and where they were not expected. Who were they? What was their life like on the other side of the Mediterranean? Under what conditions did they return to metropolitan France, how did they manage to integrate? Through the testimonies of people who came back to France, of Algerians and historians, another look at the little-known history of these “Pieds-noirs” from Algeria.

Jean-François DELASSUS is a French journalist and film-maker. Graduate of Sciences Po, he worked first as a journalist for the written press, mainly as the Figaro’s Far East correspondent, and for radio (Europe 1 and France Inter). He is also a photographer for the Gamma agency. He has published “Japon, monstre ou modèle” (1971) which won the Albert Londres Award. He has been particularly noticed for his historical documentaries, shown on the major French channels as well in many foreign countries, such as “Somme 1916, la bataille insensée” (52 minutes, France 3, 2016), “Délivrance. Noël 1944 – 8 mai 1945, une fin de guerre” (90 minutes, TF1, 2015), “Le Front Populaire, à nous la vie” (90 minutes, France 2, 2011), “14-18, le bruit et la fureur” (100 minutes, France 2, 2008), which won an Étoile from the Scam (Société Civile des Auteurs Multimedias).

 

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FRIENDS FOES

51 minutes, 2017
Director : Sead KRESEVLJAKOVIC and Emir ZUMBUL KAPETANOVIC (Bosnia)
Production : Al Jazeera Balkans, Alhemija Film (Bosnia)

Dane and Daut faced each other in the 1990’s during the war in Bosnia. Both were on the front line during the Bosnian Serb army’s attack on a Bosnian village near Srebrenica. Daut fired at Dane and assumed he’d killed him. Years later, crossing Dane’s path by chance, Daut discovered that his “victim” had survived. The starting point of their friendship. Today, even though the scars of war are deep and have left their mark in the Srebrenica region, Dane and Daut are working together to survive, in a difficult economic situation which still divides Bosnia, two decades after the war.


Sead KREŠEVLJAKOVIĆ was born in Sarajevo in 1973. Between 2007 and 2012, he was a producer and editor in the documentary department of TV Sarajevo, while also making his way as a freelance. Since 2012 he has worked as a producer in the programme department of Al Jazeera Balkans.

Emir ZUMBUL KAPETANOVIĆ was born in Sarajevo in 1981, where he studied at the Theatre Arts Academy. In 2008 he created a production company Alhemija Film, through which he makes documentary and experimental films.

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STRANGE FISH

53 minutes, 2018
Director : Giulia BERTOLUZZI (Italy)
Production : Small Boss (Italy)

“Strange Fish” echoes Billie Holiday’s song “Strange Fruit” in which, to general indifference, violence against coloured people is taken as normal, with « black bodies swinging in the southern breeze, strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees». In the southern Mediterranean the feeling is the same. The fishermen in Zarzis, a Tunisian town on the borders of Libya, set out each day wondering whether they will find a strange fish in their nets, the bloated corpse of a drowned emigrant. But Bertoluzzi’s documentary does not only show this drama, with its all-pervading indifference. It rather shows the deep and human response of the town’s anonymous heroes. For 15 years, these fishermen have helped and saved thousands of people. “And if we find them already dead, we help them as well – we bury them”, says Chamseddine Marzoug.

Giulia BERTOLUZZI is a journalist and co-founder of Nawart Press, a platform of free-lance journalists. In 2017, she won the Media Migration Award for her project “Strange Fish”. In 2016/2017, she co-wrote and co-directed “Far Right: a new frightening normal”, a documentary on the rise of the extreme right in Europe, broadcast by Al Jazeera. In 2016, she was nominated for the Doc/IT Women Award at the Venice Festival for “A Kurdish Women’s Dream”. In 2015, Rai Storia broadcast the itinerant project “Railway Diaries: A Woman’s World”, a long reportage on the Silk Road giving women the chance to speak, exceptional protagonists of their time. In 2014, she won the Morrione Ilaria Alpi Award with her first documentary “A Submerged Story”, an investigation into the traffic of archaeological objects in post-revolutionary Égypt.

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MARSEILLE, ILS ONT TUÉ MON FILS

(Marseilles, They’ve Killed My Son)

55 minutes, 2018
Direction : Édouard BERGEON and Philippe PUJOL (France)
Production : Cocottesminute productions, with the participation of Public Sénat and France Télévisions
(France)

Souad, Baya and Cécile: three mothers in Marseilles.They watched their sons grow up in the city’s
northern neighbourhoods, and then watched them lose themselves there. Sometimes die. These mothers tell us in fragments how they survive, stuck in tower-blocks which they cannot leave and where they are slowly consumed by their own grief. Through memories of the past, the daily chaos of their lives and their efforts to find a future, the film tells the story of these women who have lost their child.

 

 

Édouard BERGEON is an author and director. His film “Les fils de la terre” on the unhappiness of farmers, directly inspired by his father’s tragic example, won many distinctions in France and abroad: Jury Mention at the 2012 FIPA, Best First Film FIGRA 2012, Finalist for the Albert Londres Award, an Étoile at the SCAM (Société Civile des Auteurs Multimédias) and selected for the official competition at IDFA – Amsterdam.

Philippe PUJOL is a Marseilles-based journalist, author and director. He won the 2014 Albert Londres Award for his series of articles on Marseilles’ northern neighbourhoods: “Quartiers shit”. In 2012 he had already won the Premier Prix Varenne PQR for his newspaper series “French deconnection”, published in La Marseillaise. From these two series came his first book “French deconnection: au coeur des trafics”. He has also written “La fabrique du monstre: 10 ans d’immersion dans les
quartiers nord de Marseille, la zone la plus pauvre d’Europe” (2016), “Mon cousin le fasciste” (2017) et “Marseille 2040. Le jour où notre système de santé craquera” (2018).

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LIBYE, ANATOMIE D’UN CRIME

(Libya, Anatomy of a Crime)

69 minutes, 2018
Director : Cécile ALLEGRA (France, Italy)
Production : Cinétévé, Arte (France)

Yassine, Nazir and Ahmed have escaped from Libya, the land of their birth. Like ghosts they wander in
Tunis, bearing within them a heavy secret. They come across a handful of investigators, Libyan
resistance fighters also exiled in Tunisia, and tell their confused, painful story. Two of the investigators,
Emad et Ramadan, obstinate but caring, follow-up the scraps of information given by these three damaged men. When their eye-witness statements are put together, they reveal the outlines of an unprecedented crime: since the Revolution the systematic rape of Libyan men on a massive scale. An unspeakable crime which history is trying to suppress.

Born in Rome, Cécile ALLEGRA studied political science and philosophy before turning to documentary film-making. In 2015 she won the Albert Londres Award. For 15 years she has worked around the world as a documentary director and reporter. Her films have been shown mainly on Arte and France Télévisions. They have been selected for and won awards at many festivals in France and abroad. Her documentary “Voyage en Barbarie” won the Grand Prix du Documentaire Enjeux Méditerranéens at the 2015 PriMed. In 2016 she published “Le salaire des enfants” at Le Editions Stock, finalist for the Livre Européen Award.