18:00
Braguino, Clément Cogitore, France, 2017, 49’
In the middle of nowhere, far, very far from civilisation, where nothing appears to exist anymore, there is life. This documentary film was one of the revelations of the international competition section at FID Marseille, where it got a special jury mention.
The discovery and portrayal of two families who live in a remote area of Taiga, is one of those truly unique experience for spectators. As though cinema reinvented itself, and the film that’s born out of this showed us, for the first time images, gestures and looks that had been forgotten or had disappeared forever. The primitive, the ancestral, what is true and original, must be something close to what Cogitore shot over 700 kilometres away from the closest village. There are no roads there, and the only way to get to that town is, first, by sailing along the Yenisei River, then taking a helicopter. The Braguine and Kiline families are self-sufficient, and live in keeping with their own norms and principles. But there also is conflict in that place: the two families refuse to talk to each other. Fear, freedom, childhood, rules, the night, wild animals, the joy brought by the immensity of the forest…The result: one of the great films of the year, the cruel and ancestral story of a conflict which, perhaps thousands of years ago, was the source of everything we now know.
21:00
Ni le ciel, ni la terre, Clément Cogitore, France, 2015, 100’
French director and artist Clement Cogitore (Colmar, 1983) presented his first feature at Critics’ Week, Cannes, in 2015. It earned him the Prix Henri Langlois as well as the Critics’ Award for Best First Film, and certainly made this new director one to watch for the future.
Afghanistan, 2014. The troops are about to withdraw, but captain Anatrès Bonassieu and his battallion have been assigned the mission to watch over a remote valley in Wakhan, on the border with Pakistan. In spite of the determination of Antarès and his men, they will gradually lose control of this isolated valley. One dark night, the soldiers begin to mysteriously disappear.
French director and artist Clement Cogitore (Colmar, 1983) presented his first feature at Critics’ Week, Cannes, in 2015. It earned him the Prix Henri Langlois as well as the Critics’ Award for Best First Film, and certainly made this new director one to watch for the future.