21/08/2020 - The 16th edition of Ateliers d’Angers welcomes seven young directors, their feature debut projects and a programme of masterclasses

Janloup Bernard, selected with his debut feature project Sud

24 August will mark the beginning of the 16th Ateliers d’Angers, an event initiated and overseen by the organisers of the Angers Premiers Plans Festival. This year, the residency has selected seven young filmmakers in order to help them prepare their first fiction feature. Until 29 August, the residents will benefit from masterclasses delivered by French filmmakers Robin Campillo, Rachel Lang, Sébastien Lifshitz, cinematographer Claire Mathon, producer Marie-Ange Luciani (Les Films de Pierre) and sound engineer Raphaël Sohier. It is worth noting that the programme will also include five preview screenings (the last four in attendance of their respective directors): Undine [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Christian Petzold
film profile] from German director Christian Petzold, Sébastien Lifshitz’s Adolescentes [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Guillaume Brac’s À l'abordage [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Guillaume Brac
film profile], Emmanuel Mouret’s Love Affair(s) [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Emmanuel Mouret
film profile] and Charlène Favier’s Slalom [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Charlène Favier
film profile].

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Among the filmmakers who recently attended the Ateliers d’Angers, we can point out the duo Fanny Liatard - Jérémy Trouilh with Gagarin [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Fanny Liatard and Jérémy Tr…
film profile] (released in France on 18 November) and Nora Martirosyan with Should the Wind Drop [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Nora Martirosyan
film profile], two feature debuts which received the Official Selection label of the 2020 Cannes Film Festival (the second film also received the ACID label), but also Filippo Meneghetti with Two of Us [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Filippo Meneghetti
film profile], Neus Ballús with Staff Only [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Neus Ballús
film profile], Hubert Charuel with Bloody Milk [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Hubert Charuel
film profile], Juho Kuosmanen with The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Juho Kuosmanen
film profile], Morgan Simon with A Taste of Ink [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Morgan Simon
film profile] and Girl [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Lukas Dhont
film profile] by Lukas Dhont.

The full list of directors selected for the 2020 Ateliers d’Angers — along with mini synopses of their projects — is as follows:

Janloup Bernard (France) – Sud
At the Basque border between France and Spain. Since the death of his mother, Gilles lives with his father, a policeman, and spends his free time dealing drugs with his friend GrandClaude. One day, he meets Laurène, a young girl from a good family who is about to leave the region for her studies, and who offers him, for the first time, the possibility of a real future. As the product sold by GrandClaude begins to attract the attention of the authorities, Gilles will soon have to decide where his loyalties lie.

Lisa Diaz (France) - Zone libre
Summer ‘82. Garance is 11 years old. She lives in a remote hamlet in the Cévennes where her parents attempt to lead an alternative kind of life. She walks through the vast area with a group of young disheveled kids. With her vivid imagination, she organises for them all kinds of political games: the nationalisation of toys, pirate radio, etc. One day, two Italian activists rob a local bank. Things go south, but one of them manages to run away. The entire police force is after him. This event fuels political disputes between the parents, Simon and Marie. The latter indeed seems to despair at the fact that their hopes for a radically different world are vanishing little by little. Garance will discover that the Italian fugitive is hiding in a barn close to their house… Wouldn’t helping him be a way of continuing his revolutionary struggle? Of herself becoming an activist in training?

Lucas Gloppe (France) - Faire feu (À perte de vue)
Ever since his teenage years, Ludo has been dedicated to activism body and soul. In the middle of a political protest, abandoned by his friends and his face wounded, Ludo is helped by a young woman in the crowd, Lisa. After two months in jail, the man who was named responsible for “violent excesses within the extreme left,” decides to find her again. But as the underground world he is trying to avoid catches up with him, Ludo learns that the illness that has been weakening Lisa since the summer is cancer. A race against time begins to give her the vital momentum that she first gave him when they met.

Akihiro Hata (France) - Grand ciel (co-written with Jérémie Dubois) (Good Fortune Films)
Vincent works at night on the construction site for Grand Ciel, a futuristic and providential housing block. The work is intense and the conditions difficult, but Vincent holds on to his goal of a better future with his partner Lilia and his stepson Thomas. When two workers disappear under mysterious circumstances, Vincent and his colleagues begin to suspect their team leader of concealing incidents from their higher ups, but they soon have to reckon with a much more irrational truth.

Dania Reymond-Boughenou (Algeria) - Les Tempêtes (Les Films de l’autre Cougar)
Strange storms of yellow dust rage over Algiers and its surroundings. Samir covers the phenomenon for his newspaper. When he notices supernatural events, his partner Fajar leaves him, and Yacine, his nephew who works as a doctor, begins to hear dead people. Facing increasingly menacing tempests, Samir will have to untangle the webs of a past that still haunts him.

Jean-Guillaume Sonnier (Switzerland) - Comme des bêtes (Rita Productions)
16-year-old Élisée lives through yet another failure at school and hopes to bet everything on his career as a young bullfighter. But no one seems to believe in his talent or potential. Until the day a man, Elie, decides to take Elisée in charge and to shape him into a perfect replica of a former toreador who met with dazzling success but soon disappeared.

Estibaliz Urresola (Spain) - 20 000 espèces d'abeilles (Gariza Produkzioak)
Lucía is six years old. She’s a little girl with a penis. In the middle of her parents’ separation, she impatiently waits for summer. These holidays will allow the entire family to discover themselves as they really are.

(Translated from French)