Film History/ France
From Ukraine to Paris where the festival ”L’Europe autour de l’Europe” with a program of European films took place from March 14 till yesterday April 1. A celebration of the author film it is, the film d’auteur, with hommages to masters like the actor Jean-Pierre Léaud, born in 1944 with an early debut in 1959 in the legendary new wave film by Francois Truffaut, ”Les Quatre Cent Coups”; Antoine Doinel he is and we met him again in that role in several films by Truffaut, who is said to have seen Léaud as his alter ego. Léaud has played in films by Jean-Luc Godard and Jacquette Rivette – you remember the masterpiece ”La Maman et la Putain”? – and in the festival in Paris, he is in the latest film by Catalan director Albert Serra, ”La Mort de Louis XIV”.
The festival is run by Irena Bilic, it is the 13th edition of an impressive festival that runs in 13 different Parisian cinemas, including a couple of cultural institutes and an American university’s ”Arts Arena”, where I had the pleasure of presenting Danish Phie Ambo’s ”When You Look Away”, that was very well received by an educated audience of primarily Americans living in Paris.
Bilic also celebrated the Baltic cinema. Lithuanian Audrius Stonys had put together a program of films by Jaak Kilmi from Estonia, Viesturs Kairiss from Latvia, Arunas Matelis and himself from Lithuania.
I was not there but the organisers told me that it had been quite difficult to draw an audience to the Baltic films, as it was for the films in the Prix Sauvage competition, 8 fictions films and 1 documentary. I was in the jury with fine people like Polish Rafael Lewandowski and Bulgarian Ralitza Petrova. We gave the award to ”Colo”, a beautiful film by Portuguese Teresa Villaverde. Our jury motivation goes like this: « For the humanity and deepness with which it treats its subject matter and for the precision of its formal choices, while always remaining sincere, the Prix Sauvage goes to Colo by Teresa Villaverde. »
