25th L'ACID Selection

Today the Association du Cinéma Indépendant pour sa Diffusion (L'ACID) announced the usual nine (9) films in the selection that promotes the diffusion of independent films in movie theaters and discourages debates between authors and audiences for the last 24 years.

The ACID program at the Cannes International Film Festival was created in 1993. Films are chosen by fifteen or so filmmakers, members of ACID, formerly programmed in Cannes or whose films were supported during the year. It screens nine feature films, fiction and documentary, chosen among hundreds of works from all around the world.  ACID filmmakers follow their love for a film and wish to give visibility to directors whose work is scarcely distributed, in order to facilitate a theatrical release.

ACID’s Cannes program is a long-awaited meeting for distributors, film programmers and international festivals. It allows them to see films and for ACID to rely on the programmers’ feedback to prepare the releases.  The films shown are accompanied by ACID and its filmmakers in the various stages of the theatrical release (search for distributors / promotion / programming / organization of the Q&A’s / audience research). Also the screenings, in the presence of ACID filmmakers and the films’ crews, are also open to the public and to high school students of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region.

Among authors discovered in ACID Cannes are Lucas Belvaux, Sébastien Betbeder, Serge Bozon, Djinn Carrénard, Vincent Dieutre, Rachid Djaïdani, Alain Gomis, Arnaud et Jean-Marie Larrieu, Hicham Lasri, Ursula Meier, Avi Mograbi, Yolande Moreau et Gilles Porte, Ioanis Nuguet, Nicolás Pereda, Pierre Schoeller, Claire Simon, Justine Triet…

ACID TRIP #1: Serbia

The ACID is opening a new slot in its Cannes program, featuring a carte blanche for foreign independent filmmakers association.  As an integral part of its regular program the first ACID TRIP will benefit young Serbian cinema and the Bande à part association allowing them a number of shorts and two feature films.

The 2017 selection has 12 feature films, 9 in the main program, 1 special screening and 2 part of the ACID Trip #1: Serbia screenings.  The selection has 8 premieres, 7 fiction and 5 documentaries plus 5 short films in the ACID Trip #1: Serbia.  Among the selection what immediately calls the attention is the debut feature film by well-known actor Vincent Macaigne presented as a special screening; as far as can recollect, this is the first time this section has a film by someone that is well-known, so, yes, it's unusual.

The Selection
Avant la fin de l'été (Before Summer Ends), Maryam Goormaghtigh, France and Switzerland
Belinda, Maria Dumora, France
Coby, Christian Sonderegger, France
Kiss and Cry, Lila Pinell and Chloé Mahieu, France
Last Laugh, Zhang Tao, Hong Kong and France
L'Assemblée, Mariana Otero, France (documentary)
Le ciel étoilé au dessus de ma tête (The Starry Sky Above Me), Ilan Klipper, France
Sans adieu, Christophe Agou, France
Scaffolding, Matan Yair, Israel and Poland

Special Screening
Pour le réconfort, Vincent Macaigne, France

ACID TRIP #1:Serbia
Feature Films
Rekvijem za gospodju J. (Requiem for Mrs. J.),  Bojan Vuletić, Serbia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, France and Russia)
Vlaznost vazduha (Humidity), Nikola Ljuca, Serbia, Netherlands and Greece
Short Films
Dos patrias, Kosta Ristić, Serbia and Cuba, 4'
If I Had It My Way I Would Never Leave,  Marko Grba Singh, Serbia, 16'
Izlaz u slucaju opasnosti (Emergency Exit), Vladimir Tagić, Serbia, 15'
Kamen u ruci (A Handful of Stones), Stefan Ivancić, Serbia, 15'
Tranzicija (Transition), Milica Tomović
, Serbia, 22'

To check films at official site go here available as of this moment only in French but eventually there will be info in English.

Check clips or trailers @MOC

Info about films in the Main Program

Avant la fin de l'été (Before Summer Ends) by Maryam Goormaghtigh
Synopsis:  After five years studying in Paris, Arash has not adjusted to life there and has decided to return to Iran to live. Jolted by the news, his two friends Hossein and Nima, who do not want him to leave, convince him to take a last trip through France - secretly hoping he will change his mind. Their friendship strengthens with the evolving landscapes and their ongoing adventures, and each one's view of their lives in France changes to the point of overturning their convictions.



Belinda by Maria Dumora
Synopsis:  Belinda is 9. Not the easily intimidated type. She loves life, she loves snow, ice to slide on, the children’s home where she lives with her sister. Her sister whom she loves even more than the rest. The authorities part them. So the sisters run away, crossing forests at night to reunite.  Belinda is 15. Not the type to work in a shoe shop. In mechanics at a pinch. She lives with her mother and is about to become godmother to Nicolas, her sister’s son.  Belinda is 23. She lives with her father, Frantz. She still loves dresses, high-heeled shoes and wearing her hair in a chignon. But, more than anything, she loves Thierry, his blue eyes and his accent from the Vosges mountains. She is there to meet him when he is released from jail. They want to get married so that nothing will ever part them again. But...



Coby, Christian Sonderegger
Synopsis:  Small town smack in the American Midwest. Suzanna age 23 changes gender and becomes a boy: Coby. Her transformation deeply disrupts the lives of all who love her. Ultimately, Coby's chrysalis becomes the one of a whole family compelled to modify their own perspective. Not only a physical metamorphosis is at stake here but also a spiritual one that eventually takes place under the director's luminous and unexpected eye.



Kiss and Cry, Lila Pinell and Chloé Mahieu
Synopsis: Sarah, 15 years old, returns to figure skating and high level competition at the Colmar club. Confronted with the rivalry between the girls and the harsh words of the trainer, her body is put through its paces by the ice while her adolescent desires turn her attention away from her sporting ambitions.



L'Assemblée by Mariana Otero
Synopsis: Last year, citizens gathered together in Paris on Place de la République to fight against a reform project of the labor code and the El Khomri law . This movement quickly became an occasion to invent another way of doing politics. This is the birth of Nuit Debout.



Last Laugh by Zhang Tao
Synopsis:  In a Shandong village, an old peasant woman falls. Immediately, her children take advantage of it to declare her disabled, in order to sign up her in a nursing home. Waiting for a bed to be released, the old mother is brought to each of her children’s home, no one willing to keep her.



Le ciel étoilé au dessus de ma tête (The Starry Sky Above Me), Ilan Klipper
Synopsis: Bruno has published his first novel in 1996. Back then the press wrote : « There is a before and after Le ciel étoilé au-dessus de ma tête ». 20 years later, Bruno is 50. He is single, without kids and his roomate is a Femen. He wakes up at 2pm and spends most his days in his underwear looking for inspiration. For him everything’s fine but his relatives are getting worried…



Sans adieu by Christophe Agou
Synopsis:  In the Forez, in the East of the Massif Central, France, Claudette, 75 years old, and her neighbors, all peasant farmers from a rural underclass, feel that consumerist society is ignoring them while at the same time gradually taking over what remains of their cultural heritage and know-how. But, all do not intend to be pushed around….



Scaffolding, Matan Yair
Synopsis: 17-year-old Asher is split between his charismatic teacher and his brash father, who wants him to take over his scaffolding business.



No doubt section is improving its visibility, check the 2017 Catalog