Encounters with filmmakers

TALKING HEADS | ENCOUNTER WITH BRILLANTE MENDOZA

ESPACE PITOËFF | THÉÂTRE PITOËFF | THURSDAY, MARCH 10TH

Live discussion with Jean Perret, head of the Cinema Department / cinéma du réel at HEAD – Geneva. Conference in collaboration with HEAD – Geneva.

A genuine reference of contemporary art cinema, Filipino filmmaker Brillante Mendoza distinguishes himself by an intensely personal aesthetic and original approach.

A publicist at first, Brillante Mendoza began his filmmaking career at the age of 45. Since then, he has directed film after film, a total of 16 films over the course of a decade. Celebrated by critics, he broaches subjects such as priced homosexuality (Le Masseur, 2005, awarded at the Locarno International Film Festival), life in the porn industry (Service in 2008) and filiation (Foster Child in 2007). He also took an interest in the issue of the Manilla mafia in Kinatay, which eventually won the Best Director prize at Cannes in 2009. In 2012, he directed Captive, in which Isabelle Huppert works for an NGO and finds herself a hostage in the Philippines.

Following people’s intimate daily lives, often direct with his neorealist approach, Brillante Mendoza touches the secret magic of things and their sensuality. Though always oblique, his critique of the Filipino political system is no less omnipresent.

His latest film Taklub, is in competition and will be screened in his presence on Thursday March 10 at 9pm.

Follow the debate live and submit your questions.

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ENCOUNTER WITH NABIL AYOUCH

Cinémas du Grütli | Monday, March 7th | 8:30 pm

The projection of Much Loved will be followed by a discussion with the FIFDH public, moderated by Mathieu Menghini, lecturer at the Geneva HETS.

For the past fifteen years, French-Moroccan director Nabil Ayouch has captured the renewal, vitality and intractability of cinematic arts through his work on the most sensitive issues. Awarded at Cannes in Spring 2015, his latest feature film on prostitution in Marrakech sparked a fierce controversy before being banned in Morocco.

Swiss Romandie release on March 16.

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Encounter with JOACHIM LAFOSSE

Espace Pitoëff - Théâtre Pitoëff | Friday, March 11th | 9:15 pm

Following the screening of Les Chevaliers blancs
Co-presented with Ecole Cantonale d’Art de Lausanne (ECAL) 

Moderated by Lionel Baier, Director of the ECAL film department

Born in 1975, Joachim Lafosse, also directed Nue Propriété, starring Isabelle Huppert and Jérémie Renier (2006), Private lessons (Elève libre, 2008), Loving Without Reason (A perdre la raison, 2012), starring Tahar Rahmi, Emilie Dequenne and Niels Arestrup, which all received international acclaim

In Les Chevaliers blancs, Jacques Arnault, president of the NGO Move for Kids, persuades French families to finance an orphan adoption program in an African country devastated by war. After exploring issues of infanticide in the film Our Children, the Belgian director Joachim Lafosse delves into the 2007 controversy of Zoes’s Ark in Chad, and reveals a country that continues to struggle with its colonial past. A film supported by a prestigious cast, Vincent Lindon, Louise Bourgoin, Valérie Donzelli, and Reda Kateb.

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ENCOUNTER WITH AMOS GITAÏ

Grütli - Salle Simon | Sunday, March 13th 5 pm
Lausanne - Cinémathèque | Monday, March 14th 7:30 pm | 

Following the screening of Le Dernier Jour d’Yitzhak Rabin

Co-presented with the Swiss Cinematheque.
Discussion hosted by Serge Toubiana, journalist, critic, and former director of the French Cinematheque.

On November 4th 1995, Israeli Prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, known for the Oslo agreements and his Nobel Peace Prize, is murdered by a Jewish right-wing extremist student in Tel Aviv right after a speech in favour of peace. 20 years later, Amos Gitaï offers a new perspective on this tragic event. The film is a genuine political thriller that mixes fictional and archival images.

Swiss Romandie release on March 16th.