54th THESSALONIKI INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
November 1 - 10, 2013
PRESS RELEASE
ALAIN GUIRAUDIE &
CLAIRE SIMON
November 1 - 10, 2013
PRESS RELEASE
ALAIN GUIRAUDIE &
CLAIRE SIMON
Two filmmakers from France are being honored this year in the 54th edition of the Thessaloniki International Film Festival. This year’s main tribute celebrates the work of Alain Guiraudie, while the work of Claire Simon is presented in a spotlight. Both directors will attend the event to present and discuss their work. In addition, the TIFF will publish a book on the work of Alain Guiraudie with original texts and film reviews.
ALAIN GUIRAUDIE
Director and writer Alain Guiraudie, one of the most fascinating filmmakers working in France today, was born in 1964 in the Aveyron area. He directed his first film, the short Heroes Never Die, in 1990. His second medium-length film, That Old Dream That Moves, won the Prix Jean Vigo in the 2001 Cannes International Film Festival. In 2013, Guiraudie’s most recent film, Stranger by the Lake, won the Best Director Award in the Cannes IFF Certain Regard section. In addition to Stranger by the Lake, 5 more of the director’s films will be screened during the 54th TIFF.
Guiraudie’s cinema, an aesthetically and thematically distinctive oeuvre, undeniably belongs to the queer cinema genre. Nonetheless, his work often defies the genre’s conventions and offers a perspective that is idiosyncratic, refreshing and unexpected. In reality, Guiraudie is primarily concerned with his characters’ right to love –both romantic and friendly; he is intrigued and amused by the workings of romance and sexuality. Combining an everyday, humdrum realism with strokes of absurdity, surrealism and humor, Guiraudie has created a body of work that, despite its consistency, is comprised of films that bear their own unique marks.
In Sunshine for the Scoundrels (2001), a woman and a shepherd that come from different worlds spend a day looking for some of his (imaginary) animals, all the while discussing life and love. This is Guiraudie’s first film where his philosophical concerns and his distinct fantasy world appear and his playful, oddball sense of humor emerges, elements that will be further developed in No Rest for the Brave (2003), a funny and absurd story of a man fighting mortality and in Time Has Come (2005), a medieval pastiche taking place in a fantasy land with bandits and warriors. In the director’s own words, in his films he strives to “consider the hiatus between real life and fantasy”.
That Old Dream that Moves (2001) is, on the contrary, a strongly realist piece in which the closing of a factory -and the climate created by the subsequent loss of jobs- serve as a backdrop for the reticent sexual desire between a mechanic and his boss. In The King of Escape (2009) a middle-aged gay man going through an existential crisis marked by loneliness, falls in love with a teenage girl and they escape together in the woods. Here, Guiraudie’s gift for presenting serious things with a lovely, light touch becomes most apparent.
Guiraudie’s films are deeply personal and perhaps none more so than his latest: in Stranger by the Lake (2013) he explores male gay sexuality more openly and boldly than ever. The film signifies a departure from his earlier work, particularly in tone, as it is significantly darker than his other films. Confined to the microcosm of a lakeside cruising spot that provides an aesthetic and narrative sense of precise geometry, Stranger is an exploration of lust, love, their mysteries and many facets.
THE FILMS:
Stranger by the Lake (L’ inconnu du lac), 2013, 97’, France
The King Of Escape (Le roi de l'evasion), 2009, 97’, France
Time Has Come (Voici venu le temps), 2005, 92’, France
No Rest For The Brave (Pas de repos pour les braves), 2003, 107’, France
That Old Dream That Moves (Ce vieux reve qui bouge), 2001, 51’, France
Sunshine for the Scoundrels (Du soleil pour les gueux), 2000, 55’, France
CLAIRE SIMON
Claire Simon, born in London in 1955, is a prolific French director, writer, actress, director of photography and editor, who divides her work between fiction and documentary with the same dedication, often blurring the lines between the two within the same films. 4 of her fiction features will be screened during the 54th TIFF.
Simon’s focus is without a doubt anthropocentric –for her, cinema is a way to examine reality closely and her work is often characterized as belonging to the “direct cinema” tradition. She has a clear vision that is consistent in all her films, and –always with the utmost respect- gives voice to those who need it, placing emphasis in stories about teenagers, women and immigrants. She makes films with a distinctive fluidity and delicacy; the various realities presented in her work are complex, authentic and textured, while this is achieved with the most straightforward and sincere of cinematic means.
Astute and poignant character studies of young women are A Foreign Body (1997), Simon’s first fiction feature, narrating the story of Magali, a young provincial girl who feigns a pregnancy to save her marriage and On Fire (2006), in which 15-year-old Livia falls in love with an older and married fireman, and is gradually consumed by a passion that functions as an escape from her difficult life. God’s Offices (2008), based on interviews that Simon conducted in a family planning center and featuring luminous performances by Nathalie Baye, Beatrice Dalle and Nicole Garcia, tells the stories of various women visiting such a center, as well as those of their counselors: it is a veritable tableau of female life and courage.
Simon’s newest film, Gare du Nord (2013), was entirely shot in the homonymous Paris train station (it is the fictional part of a diptych completed with the documentary Human Geography, which records a few moments from the lives of a multitude of train passengers). The station, a place of transit and transition aptly described by one of the main characters as a “representation of the whole world”, serves as an ideal location for Simon’s brand of cinema. The film follows the intertwining stories of several characters. The director’s genuine interest in people’s everyday lives, her humanity, as well as her ability to turn the everyday into inspired cinema, shine through.
THE FILMS:
Gare du Nord, 2013, 119’, France/Canada
God’s Offices (Les bureaux de Dieu), 2008, 117’, France/Belgium
On Fire (Ca brule), 2006, 111’, France
A Foreign Body (Sinon oui), 1997, 115’, France/Canada
