We’ve a winner! Lucas Acher’s “Laser-Cat” has come out on high of La Cinef part at Cannes.
“It’s a one-night journey about a teenager who’s bored at home. His mother just left for a date, and he’s 14. He doesn’t know what to do, it’s a Friday night, and he keeps trying to annoy people with a laser pointer in the street. His crush lives across the building where he lives in São Paulo. He tries to annoy her, and she doesn’t care,” Acher instructed Selection.
Quickly, her cat begins to comply with the laser as properly. As soon as it falls, the boy ventures into the evening, looking for it.
“I always love the presence of chance in filmmaking. One of the main references or a film that inspires me a lot is ‘After Hours’.”
For its twenty ninth version, La Cinef has chosen 14 live-action and 5 animated shorts from among the many 2,750 despatched by movie colleges all around the world.
Directed by 12 girls and 9 males, they signify 15 international locations and 4 continents. Two of the colleges are invited for the primary time: Hongik College (South Korea) and ISAMM (Tunisia).
Carla Simón has presided over the jury. She was joined by Park Ji-Min, Ali Asgari, Salim Kechiouche and Magnus von Horn.
“Thank you for making us travel around the world for making us feel wide range of emotions,” mentioned Simón.
“You made us reflect about today, and we learned a lot about filmmaking. We wish you all long and prolific careers.”
The second prize was given to “Silent Voices” by Nadine Misong Jin (Columbia College, USA).
“Nothing eventful or dramatic happens, but I wanted to make a ‘slice of life’ kind of film, I guess. Something more subdued. I wanted to allow the audience to find the meaning by themselves,” mentioned the director.
“We have always believed that the personal cannot be separated from the political, and this film is a great example of that,” mentioned Park Ji-Min.
The third prize, ex aequo, went to Julius Lagoutte Larsen for “Never Enough” (La Fémis, France) and “Growing Stones, Flying Papers” by Roozbeh Gezerseh and Soraya Shamsi (Filmuniversität Babelsberg Konrad Wolf, Germany).
“I grew up in Denmark with a French mother, and now I live in France, but this allowed to go back to Denmark again, and work with actors and I’d already worked with before starting school. It’s like a homecoming project,” mentioned Lagoutte Larsen. Working with Alvilda Lyneborg Lassen was a precedence, he mentioned.
“Her presence is so strong and her acting is impeccable. This film revolves around questions of solitude, belonging, and how do we connect to each other. Or not. It was a very collaborative effort. I wanted to work with a larger group of actresses, and create an organic process that would allow for improvisation. We worked a bit like a documentary crew.”
Roozbeh Gezerseh and Soraya Shamsi admitted the primary concept for the movie got here from the revolution in Iran again within the Seventies.
“Since then, it turned into a more universal story,” mentioned Gezerseh. The couple is married in actual life.
“We want to continue working together. It feels natural,” famous Shamsi, with Gezerseh including: “We complete each other really well. Someone’s weakness is another person’s strength – we fit together like a puzzle.”
Different chosen movies included “Sunday’s Children” by Reuben Hamlyn (NYU, USA), “Photograph of An Insane Woman to Show the Condition of Her Hair” by Arwen Aznag (Luca Faculty of Arts Brussels, Belgium), and “Me, You and the Cow” by Aina Callejón (ESCAC, Spain).
Fanny Capu’s “Pickled” (NFTS, U.Ok.) was additionally chosen, in addition to “Bird Rhapsody” by Wonjung Choi (Hongik College, South Korea) and “Always Wanted to Be God, Never Wanted to Be Good” by Noa Epars and Marvin Merkel (HEAD, Switzerland), “Over the Threshold” by Tara Gajović (FDU, Serbia).
“Somewhere I Belong” by Youssef Handouse (ISAMM, Tunisia), “Axles” by Jakub Krzyszpin (The Polish Nationwide Movie Faculty in Łódź, Poland), “Our Secrets” by Lenti Liang (USC Cinematic Arts, USA), “Shadows of The Moonless Nights” by Mehar Malhotra (FTII, India) and “28 Days Left” by Yasmin Najjar (Aalto College, Finland) had been additionally proven.
“In Finland, we have mandatory military service. I chose to do it voluntarily because I’m Finnish-Palestinian. I’ve been always following what’s happening in Palestine, and my family has been sitting in front of the TV in Finland, saying we can’t do anything about,” mentioned Najjar.
“I’ve been growing up in Finland, and then I had this feeling that if something ever happens there, I don’t want to have the same feeling. I started to wonder: Do I want to be part of this whole military thing? Do I belong here? I don’t think the film even answers this question, but it’s exploring it.”
Rounding up the choice is “Left Behind, Still Standing” by Vida Skerk (BFTS, U.Ok.), “Where Fireflies Sparkle” by Clara Vieira (ESTC, Portugal) and “Will It Rain Again Today” by Wong Chau-Hong (Nihon College Faculty of Artwork, Japan).
