Jean-Michel Frodon
Journalist, Film Critic and Cinema Historian
France
Frodon has been the editor in chief of Cahiers du Cinema since 2003 after working as the senior editor of the film section of “Le Monde” from 1990 to 2003. From 1998 to 2001 he taught a seminar on "The Body on Screen" at Ecole Normale Superieure (Ulm). He currently teaches "Politics of Image" at the National Institute of Political Sciences and is the organizer or co-organizer of many events including the international opening symposium for the Cannes Film Festival in 2000 and 2002, as well as professional meetings (L’Industrie du reve) dedicated to cinema and digital art. In December 2001, he established an independent think-tank named “L’Exception, groupe de reflexion sur le cinema”.
★3rd Festival Recommended Movies★
The Gospel of The Creole Pig (19min.)
Director:Michelange Quay
In Haiti, in New York, on this planet. A poem and a shout of rage, a curse with feelings and smile, great music, creativity, concerned by the real world in its worst aspects but with high spirit.
Director:Ido Fluk
The mourning of a woman after her beloved fat husband died of too much liver pate is build through the relation with the deceased’s image. A subtle play between death, image, memory and life, astoundingly well filmed, with an intense tenderness towards the main actress.
Director:Esmir Filho
The sentimental shoemaker will convince the lady of his thoughts to wear the shoes he designed for her : no other reason for this film than the elegance of storytelling, the fine design of sounds and image.
Director:Rajeev Ahuja
The passengers of the train while a rape is committed next to them: disturbing thanks to the use of sound and length, the absence of discourse, the refusal of any final trick. Strong shots.
Director:Elena Solodkova
Poetic and factual requiem for the victims of Chernobyl. Acute, without sentimentalism, strong.
Director:Hugh Gibson
Three generations of Russian immigrants in Canada: the child is dying, the grand father rejects his daughter, refuses to see the grandson. A lot of information and background in such a short time, strong physical presence, uncompromising violence, related to the reality of life even in its darkest forms.
Director:Olivier Klein
Virtuoso combination of western and Bollywood musicals for a tale against the repression of illegal immigrants with dynamic and rhythm.
Love Me or Leave Me Alone (14min.)
Director:Duane Hopkins
The brutal relationship between two teenagers unable to tell each other they are in love makes a predictable script, but with a beautiful work on image and with the actors.
Director:Seung Chung
The energy in the filmmaking, the sense of the shot and of editing gives an unexpected strength to this Sci-Fi tale based on a banal idea.
Director:Umut Aral
Yes one can make a little thriller, with tonus, humour, lack of pretension and taste.
★2nd Festival Recommended Movies★
Director:Arto Tuohimaa
3 men with a project (love, family, have a bath in the ice…), a good sense of the frame and the length of shots, comedy without despise against the characters. Even the dog is ok.
Director:Makoto Yamaguchi
The little boy who wet his bed and tried to change things so it would not be seen. A real adventure, with danger, loneliness, magic. The story may seem tiny, but from the scene of the “useless” game alone in the room we know it’s real, and good filmmaking.
Director:Masayuki Nakazawa
2 schoolboys, 1 schoolgirl, a former friend bullied, the courage and the weight of past. Cruelty, desire and fear to act, powerful filming and editing though the minimal technical means.
Director:Sarah Cox
The schoolgirl who had no gravity. Mixed technique of real image and graphics for a cruel story of loneliness. Beautiful and strong.
Director:Natalia Beliauskene
2 men fighting and walking and joking and fishing. An absurd comedy with real cinema shots.
Director:Johann Sachs
The brother who is always filming and the brother who is always provoking. Games about representation, using extreme themes (nazis and Jews). A real sense of filmmaking, of the use of light, camera movements, sound.
Director:Tetsuya Takahasky
In the future, a prisoners camp, one escape, the absurd plastic bubble thing. Very gifted, a sense of atmospheres. Not much more than a bright style exercise.
Director:Roman Filippov
Beautiful black and white about the adventures of the child flute player. Very efficient and quite elegant though makes compromises. Not much freedom. A very good school exercise.
Director:Yu Seock-hyun
The room in the room in the room… Animated visual game about the reversibility of space and the relativity of scales. Clever.
★1st Festival Recommended Movies★
Director:Bui Kim Quy
An interesting sense of reality and cruelty, though too explicit
