Author: Louise McLeod Tabouis

Give me the essential or let me die

Adapted from Milean Agus’ novel ‘Mal di Pietre’, veteran French director Nicole Garcia has made a beautiful film about people’s neediness of love. Gabrielle Savourney (Marion Cotillard), the passionate young adult daughter of successful farmers in French Provence, proves to be a mystery to her parents. Adele, her perplexed and apathetic mother comes up with all sorts of illnesses to describe Gabrielle, while threatening to have her put away in an institution and ignoring the truth. Eventually she spots Spanish workhand José (Alex Broudermühl) glancing at Gabrielle, and comes up with another solution.

Honest and direct, José knows what he is up against, but having lost everything in Franco’s Spain, considers that there is nothing more to be lost.  Perhaps he has seen in Gabrielle a reflection of his own needs, however unwilling she is to identify them. José provides Gabrielle with an escape, away from her mother, and in exchange, Gabrielle’s mother provides him with a way to start a business. Alex Sauvage (Louis Garrel), a wounded and shattered soldier on leave from the war in French Indo-China provides the catalyst to the second part of the story, that takes place in the sanitarium, where Gabrielle receives treatment for kidney stones, explaining the original title of the film.

Set in the 1950s, the film is saturated by the summer heat of the south of France. With a soundtrack performed by the London Symphony Orchestra and cicadas, director of photography, Christophe Beaucarne (AFC) has created beautiful images, from the shadowy barns of Provence to the saunas of the Swiss sanitarium, and finally to the Mediterranean. The story’s mystery is retained by the mixed-up chronology, leaving Gabrielle with a new-found confidence in her capacity to be loved, as well as resolution for José.

Selected in competition at the last Cannes film festival, the success of this film is its lack of sentimentality. Cotillard and Broudermühl’s portrayals of empathetic and raw characters are incredibly moving. Go and hug someone, they probably need it.

131 mins (2016)

Promoted from writer to author, Writer (Graham Cawte) has been requested by his company to stretch himself and write fiction, an upgrade from banal manuals and reports. His response: “As you know, my life experience is minimal, I may not be the best candidate for this job”.

To assist him with this, the company has an Emotional Motor Unit (Francesca Burgoyne) delivered to his monochrome home for 2 weeks. A programmed girl in a dress with violet eyes. Apparently, this will enable him to experience some feelings and emotions that he has no familiarity with. From behind his mask, Writer manages to become attached, until the tube of purple detachment pills are delivered. Will he take them and wipe out the most sensation he has ever experienced, or will he write the best work of his life?

Following Nelson’s 2015 feature film LITTLE PIECES, this is a clever film, written, directed and produced by Xènia Puiggros and Adam Nelson.  Depicting a perfect dystopian world, Puiggros has managed to depict a cold, disengaged, over-medicated society, obsessed by work with little regard for human relationships. Puiggros’ preparation for writing the script was reading lots of science fiction classics, like George Orwell’s 1984 and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. She says that inspired her to think about the universe in which the story would take place. “I wrote E.M.U before films like Her or Ex Machina came out, so my sources were movies like Blade Runner, as well as the sci-fi series The Twilight Zone”.

Praise to the art director Cristian Giordano, for Writer’s insipid home – from the gloominess of the bedroom to the building’s interiors. EMOTIONAL MOTOR UNIT has screened at a few festivals in the past year with Adam Nelson winning Best Director at the IndieWise Virtual Film Festival 2016.

Evan (Daniel David Diamond) is an itinerant DJ heading towards 40, reflecting on his vapid lifestyle “all these fake arsed people in this piece of shit club”, while sabotaging his career.

He’s staying in a mysterious hotel/clinic, difficult to know which, with his day consisting of club, gym, vege wrap, repeat. Dr Verde (Daniel Faraldo) meanwhile, (same building, different floor) is a Freudian fatherly Portugese psychiatrist, keeping the patients/guests in drugs, and being very attentive to Evan. Eve Woodhouse (Lindsey Neves), trainee psychiatrist and librarian suddenly appears, filling Evan in on the sordid potential of pharmaceutical companies and the Illuminati, while providing him with books about medicated puppets and Carl Jung.

Further confusion comes when Evan phones home to speak with his mother, who is almost unreally lolling around the sun-soaked pool, sipping mocktails with the rest of the family. Evan’s troubles become apparent as he recounts his recurrent nightmares. The big question is, what happened 14 years ago?

“Write what you know. Make the scary movie that scares you. The only thing that anyone wants to read is what haunts your soul.” Inspired by this, sometime DJ Jimmie Gonzalez embarked on making The Red Man, his debut feature film. He has successfully written, directed and edited a perplexing film, screened at a few festivals and collected some awards along the way.

Gonzalez has created a maze of a building, complete with sliding bookshelves, secret files, hidden tunnels, torture rooms and a prison, all underneath a sleek façade. Perhaps this is the film’s metaphor? I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next.

Desperation is a powerful thing. It makes people do some reckless shit. It’s why we find dead bodies at the back of lorries, cargo ships, fishing boats. Desperation makes the wrong people start asking the right questions.

You know when you hear about somebody disappearing and you speculate how it was that nobody saw a thing until weeks, months or years later when witnesses begin to appear, and you wonder why they hadn’t chosen to say anything earlier.  PANIC director Sean Spencer has created an immediately intriguing neo-noir debut feature film, inspired after seeing a man walking through a pub trying to sell DVDS.

Starring David Gyosi (Interstellar, Cloud Atlas, Containment) as Andrew Deely, a music journalist with an enviable wall of vinyl in his London flat, describing the albums and perhaps life too, like this: I think we all want to own something put together with a bit of care and artistry. I think we need it. Don’t we?

After being badly beaten up after a gig, Deely has spent the last 8 months indoors, while looking at life out the window, conducting interviews over the phone and inviting an occasional person over for warm human contact. When an incident occurs involving his neighbour Kem (Yennis Cheung), Deely takes action, travelling through London with his only defense being a hammer he has found under his sink. The resulting film is about a physically vulnerable man as he discovers London’s ‘ghost economy’ and the way it connects to an underlying criminal society; as well as confronting the important question of what happens to unregistered, exploited, desperate immigrants.

DOP Carl Burke has made a bland urban highrise estate into an attractive mass of flickery light-filled windows, drawing you into having a look and wonder at the things we can’t quite see. Composer and sound designer Christopher Nicholas Bangs’ brilliant sound track includes some subtle breathing/siren background ambience for added nerviness as Deely, despite his moral engagement, fights his anxiety and decides to pursue the mystery himself.

Produced by White Night Films PANIC, released in cinemas this month, premiered at the 2014 Raindance film festival where it was nominated for the best UK feature award. It has since been selected for film festivals worldwide including the Dinard Film Festival, East End Film Festival and Times BFI London screenings.

Sean Spence’s short films STRIPES, ROMANCE, FOUR LITTLE LETTERS & 3 x 4 have been broadcast and distributed by a number of organizations, including the BBC, Sky, ITV, The British Council and The BFI. They have also been selected for film festivals worldwide, including Edinburgh Film Festival, Clermont Ferrand, Manchester Kino, Berlin Britspotting and Soho Rushes. Stripes was selected for Sight & Sound magazine’s best UK shorts issue.

PANIC RELEASES IN SELECT CINEMAS 18TH NOVEMBER AND ON VOD 21ST NOVEMBER.

This short four-minute film produced by Brighton-based collective Red Kite Films is directed by Christopher Laws and filmed by Joe Kaufman.

Chris (Christopher Lawes) engages in hesitant conversation with the stranger (Jack McKenna) who has suddenly appeared next to him, sitting on a park bench, the type that has an affixed memorial plaque. Full of remorse and regret, he attempts to resolve the major issues impeding his life – how to forgive himself for the death of his friend.  Jack, who has been watching Chris’ downward slide, provides a way back.

The combination of the story and soundtrack creates a slightly cloying melancholia, and Christopher’s manicured eyebrows don’t suggest self-neglect, however, these are minor distractions.  The film cleverly presents a conversation that most people dream of having with a person who has left, disappeared, or died. Seeking resolve is a universal theme that the filmmakers have treated well and the premise is one that stays with you long after the film has ended.

Have a look at Red Kite Films’ website for more of their diverse film productions: redkitefilms.co.uk

From their website – 

‘We are a group of creative professionals, fascinated by technology, light and colour, based in the sunny seaside coast of Brighton. 

We create cinematic films, telling the stories of the brands, companies and individuals we work with. We specialise in art house, lifestyle and documentary film making – it is our job to tell the real story behind your brand.

Red Kite Films offers a full range of filming and post production services, so can work on any aspect of your project.

We shoot on 4K Cinema Cameras and use high end audio gear to give your project the best quality possible. Our office in Brighton has two editing stations with the full adobe creative suite.

 Please have a look at some of our work on the project page.’