Cinéma du réel

“Two out of three protagonists of Anatomy of a Portrait are on stage while the third, despite being the reason for their initial encounter, is a ghost,” begins the synopsis of Mattia Colombo and Francesco Clerici’s latest documentary opus, presented at this week’s ParisDOC Work-In-Progress forum. BDE was intrigued enough to catch with the film’s producer, Marco Malfi Chindemi to find out more.

BDE caught up with Elijah Stevens, producer of Barbara Forever, ahead of the project’s March 26 Work-in-Progress presentation at ParisDOC. Directed by Brydie O’Connor, the film is described as the first ever feature documentary to exclusively tell the story of the lesbian experimental filmmaker, Barbara Hammer. “Her work [has] become a blueprint for a new generation of queer and radical artists to write our own histories into existence,” says Stevens.

Traditionally based in the Pompidou Centre and opening March 22, the 47th edition has shifted this year to Paris’ Latin Quarter, and will take place across a series of commercial cinemas. There are 37 films in the competition, showcasing, as the festival tells us, ‘documentary creation in all its diversity, as well as world, international, or French premieres.’ Core to events is ParisDOC, the festival’s industry forum, which kicks off March 25.

The six Works-in-Progress screenings will take place on 26 and 27 March at the Alliance Française de Paris as part of the 47th Cinéma du réel. Works-in-Progress screenings are accessible upon registration only to professionals with a distribution and film-placement activity: festivals, sales, TV, theatrical and web distribution.

Launched in 2019, First Window is dedicated to documentary debuts of features and short films by young creators enrolled in art schools, university film programmes, filmmaking courses of any kind, or creating outside of any specific training environment. From 22 to 29 March, the thirteen films will be screened at Paris’s Reflet Médicis, and will be available online on a dedicated section of the Mediapart website, where visitors can vote for their favourite film.

With running times ranging from 10 to 119 minutes,  the 37 films in Competition will “once again showcase contemporary documentary in all its diversity, as world, international or French premieres.” The Paris-based festival runs March 22-29.