A few days back organizers announced that none other than Mira Nair will be the patron of the 2019 edition. The following is what she said.I was at Cannes for the world premiere of my film Salaam Bombay! [in 1988] - we won the Audience Award and the Golden Camera Award. I remember so many things about that film, but most of all that it was a life-and-death situation. It was almost impossible to make; we had no money. We would shoot all day and for every shot, we would have at least a thousand people watching the shoot. I would come home tired, to my flat, which I shared with several cast and crew members who also didn’t have a place to go at night. It was like a railway station. I would be up all night, on the phone with financiers and producers trying to raise money, sometimes for the next day of shooting.
Fast forward to today - to have films and artists from places like Bangladesh, Rwanda, India, Tunisia and so many others is exciting. For me to be able to share with them what I know of this life, to mentor them, help and support them in their journey of film making, is something I am thrilled to be doing at La Fabrique 2019. It is important to enrich world cinema and empower visionary artists to share their stories because if we don't tell our own stories then no one else will.To refresh our memories (as if we need it) here is a brief bio.
Mira Nair is an Academy Award nominated director best known for her films Salaam Bombay! (Camera d’Or, Cannes Film Festival 1988), Mississippi Masala, The Namesake, Monsoon Wedding which won the Golden Lion and a BAFTA and became one of the highest grossing foreign films of all time, and The Reluctant Fundamentalist awarded the German Film Award for Peace. Her recent film is Queen of Katwe for Disney starring Academy Award winning actor Lupita Nyong’o. Nair's acclaimed film Monsoon Wedding (2001) was brought to the stage recently as a highly anticipated musical at Berkeley Repertory Theater where it closed an extended, sold-out run in 2017. She is the director of BBC's forthcoming adaptation of A Suitable Boy, to be released in 2020. An activist by nature, Nair founded Salaam Balak Trust for streetchildren in 1989, and the Maisha Film Lab in East Africa in 2004, a free school to train film makers in the African continent. She was awarded the Padmabhushan in 2014 for her work in the arts.
As we know La Fabrique is a professional program helping talented young directors from emerging countries increase their exposure. Each year this program, developed by Institut Français, invites ten (10) directors working on their first or second film to attend the Festival de Cannes along with their producers.
During work sessions, directors have the opportunity to discuss their project with the program’s patron, an internationally renowned director. In addition, they have direct access to the festival’s different competitive selections (La Semaine de la Critique, La Quinzaine des Réalisateurs) and major Professional events and receive accreditation for the Marché du Film. They also meet the French and international press accompanied by event press officer.
The Institut Français also has other programs to support cultural diversity like the Cinémathèque Afrique (African Film Archive) and Aide aux Cinémas du Monde (World Cinema Support), a fund which is co-managed with the CNC.
The 10 projects that will participate in the current edition are the following. Four projects are first films and 6 projects are second films. There will be 2 female directors and 7 female producers as well as 8 male directors and 3 male productes present (of whom 1 is a director/producer). It's the first time an Indonesian project has been selected.
Middle East
Egypt: الممنوعات Bootleg by Reem Morsi – Fiction, 1st feature film
Africa
Burkina Faso: Religiously Modified Organism by Simplice Ganou – Documentary, 2nd feature film
Rwanda: Tanzanite by Kantarama Gahigiri – Fiction, 2nd feature film
Tunisia: Fouledh by Mehdi Hmili – Documentary, 2nd feature film,
Latin America
Argentina: Tres Hermanos (Three Brothers) by Francisco Paparella – Fiction, 2nd feature film
Brazil: A Professora de francês (The French Teacher) by Ricardo Alves Jr. – Fiction, 2nd feature film
Asia
Bagladesh: Sand City by Mahde Hasan – Fiction, 1st feature film
India: Rimdogittanga (Rapture) by Dominic Sangma – Fiction, 2nd feature film,
Indonesia: Crocodile Tears by Tumpal Tampubolon – Fiction, 1st feature film
Laos: Raising a Beast by Xaisongkham Induangchanthy – Fiction, 1st feature film
To check the announcement at the official site go here.
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