Organisers of Cinéma du réel announced February 11 the Competition selection for the festival’s 47thedition (March 22-29). With running times ranging from 10 to 119 minutes, and set within locations “from China to Canada or from France to Suriname,” the 37 films in Competition will “once again showcase contemporary documentary in all its diversity, as world, international or French premieres,” the festival writes.
Other highlights of the festival include ‘rendez-vous’ with four radical filmmakers (see below) and ParisDOC, the festival’s industry platform. The First Window section is dedicated to documentary debuts from young creators enrolled in art schools, university film programmes, filmmaking courses of any kind, while the Special Screenings programme presents French premieres of films previously celebrated at A-list festivals.
“Each year, Cinéma du réel brings together the filmmakers behind contemporary documentary production around the globe. Through its programme, the festival throws light on the formal developments and experiments affecting documentary filmmaking in connection with the history of film. A selection of rare or unreleased films, questioning the state of the world, to be discovered in the cinemas of the Latin Quarter,” organisers stress.
“A festival is a common territory shared by viewers, films, and those who make them. Because it is the site of a dynamic conversation, it must set up conditions for the emergence and exchange of innovative ideas. Cinéma du Réel explores the state of documentary filmmaking, its forms and evolutions, and how filmmakers chose to approach them. As such, it is an exploratory festival, a shared space of investigation,” the festival adds.
The Competition section of the 47th Cinéma du réel:
- 1 RUE ANGARSKAIA by Rostislav Kirpicenko. France, Ukraine | 69’ | World premiere
- ABOUT THE PINK COCOON by Binyu Wang. China | 30’ | World premiere
- ADNAN BEING AND TIME by Marie Valentine Regan. France, United States | 70’ | World premiere
- AIR BASE by Luo Li. Canada | 101’ | World premiere
- ARCHIPELAGO OF EARTHEN BONES – TO BUNYA by Malena Szlam. Canada, Australia, Chili | 20’ | French premiere
- BAĦAR BISS by Franziska von Stenglin. Malta, Germany | 25’ | French premiere
- BALANE 3 by Ico Costa. Portugal, France | 97’ | French premiere
- BEING JOHN SMITH by John Smith. United Kingdom | 27’ | French premiere
- EVIDENCE by Lee Anne Schmitt. United States | 75’ | French premiere
- FIRST LIGHT by Phuong Thao Nguyen. France | 26’ | World premiere
- LE GRAND TOUT by Aminatou Echard. France, Belgium, Niger | 119’ | World premiere
- LES HABITANTS by Maureen Fazendeiro. Portugal, France | 42’ | World premiere
- IN THE MANNER OF SMOKE by Armand Yervant Tufenkian. United States, United Kingdom | 90’ | World premiere
- INVENTORY by Ivan Marković. Serbia | 21′ | World premiere
- JE SUIS DÉJÀ MORT TROIS FOIS by Maxence Vassilyevitch. France | 64’ | World premiere
- JE SUIS LA NUIT EN PLEIN MIDI by Gaspard Hirschi. France | 81’ | World premiere
- LITTLE BOY by James Benning. United States | 74’ | French premiere
- LOIN DE MOI LA COLÈRE by Joël Akafou. Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, France | 83’ | French premiere
- LUMIÈRE DE MES YEUX by Sophie Bredier. France | 90’ | World premiere
- MANAL ISSA, 2024 by Elisabeth Subrin. United States, Lebanon | 10’ | International premiere
- MILLS OF TIME by Pauline Rigal. France | 46′ | World premiere
- MONIKONDEE by Lonnie Van Brummelen, Siebren De Haan & Tolin Erwin Alexander
Suriname, Netherlands | 99’ | World premiere - MONÓLOGO COLECTIVO by Jessica Sarah Rinland. Argentina, United Kingdom | 104’ | French premiere
- NOTES OF A CROCODILE by Daphne Xu. Cambodia, China, Canada | 18’ | French premiere
- THE OTHER QUEEN OF MEMPHIS by Luna Mahoux. France | 22’ | World premiere
- PAUL by Denis Côté. Canada | 87’ | French premiere
- POSTSCRIPT by Parastoo Anoushahpour, Faraz Anoushahpour & Ryan Ferko. Canada | 30’ | French premiere
- RECHERCHE MÉDÉE by Mathilde Girard. France | 57’ | World premiere
- REGARDE AVEC MES YEUX ET DONNE-MOI LES TIENS by Noëlle Pujol. France | 31’ | World premiere
- ROBERT TASCHEN by Léo Bizeul. France | 10’ | World premiere
- SA RAFALE by Maxime Garault. France | 41’ | World premiere
- LES SANGLIÈRES by Elsa Brès. France | 69’ | World premiere
- SELEGNA SOL by Anouk Moyaux. France | 50’ | World premiere
- SIX KNOTS by Ali Vanderkruyk. Canada | 29’ | French premiere
- STREAM-STORY by Amit Dutta. India | 32’ | World premiere
- TIN CITY by Feargal Ward. Ireland | 20’ | French premiere
- YVON by Marie Tavernier. France | 77’ | World premiere
Rendez-vous with four filmmakers (text supplied by Cinema du reél)
- Ryusuke Hamaguchi: survive, they say. Upon graduating from film school in 2011, Hamaguchi directs the the Töhoku documentary Trilogy – Senses (2015), Drive My Car (2021) and Evil does not exist (2024) – with survivors of the 2011 tsunami. In this early work, self-narrative already emerges as a key element of his cinema.
- Wang Bing: “Made in China“: Going against the narrative of the ‘Chinese economic miracle’, Wang Bing has been examining the repercussions of the changes in contemporary China on individuals and their lifestyles for the last twenty years. In his Youth trilogy, the last two parts of which will be shown in avant-première, he immerses us into the micro-manufacturing workshops of the town of Zhili, near Shanghai, with young workers aged 17 to 20.
- Julia Loktev: counterinformation: Julia Loktev was born in St Petersburg, Russia, and emigrated to the United States at the age of nine. Winner of the Cinéma du réel Grand Prix in 1998 for Moment of Impact, she now returns with My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow, in which she follows her Russian journalist friends as they grapple with their country’s repressive politics. ‘The world you are about to see no longer exists’, warns Loktev in the very first minutes. For there was no way of knowing, when filming began in 2021, that she would be in a privileged position to observe Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and the terrible repression that followed against any dissenting voice.
- In Ghassan Salhab’s workshop: In Lebanon, which he doesn’t leave, the director of – among others – Phantom Beirut (1998), Terra Incognita (2002) and The Valley (2014), documents, describes and analyses through cinema, the present of the country and the region as a whole. We’ll be following in real time the reflections of a filmmaker who, day after day, attempts to make a gesture, a thought, a shot, a text. Participative sessions, open to all.
