13/07/2007

Directors Pascale Ferran, Claude Miller and Faouzi Bensaïdi are among the speakers that will hold the masterclass at the third edition of the Angers Workshops (July 15-22). Initiated by Jeanne Moreau and the organisers of the Premiers Plans Festival, this year the Angers Workshops will welcome seven young up-and-coming directors who are preparing their debut feature.

The shortlist includes Belgium’s Nicolas Provost whose thriller project L’envahisseur (“Invader”), produced by Versus Production, follows an illegal African immigrant trying to adapt to Brussels and who, confronted with the harshness of our society, becomes – slowly but irreversibly – a monster embodying our worst fears.

France’s Agnès Feuvre – who scripted on four occasions for Olivier Assayas and co-scripted Franck Guérin’s A Summer Day and Arnaud Desplechin’s Un conte de Noël (in post-production) – has begun filming her first feature Entre chien et loup (Why Not Productions) at the age of 32.

Cinematographer on Christophe Otzenberger’s Itinéraires, Nicolas Guicheteau is currently preparing Eden Roc (a Shellac Film production), while Tunisian director Mehdi Ben Attia (co-scriptwriter on André Téchiné’s Far Away [+see also:
interview: André Téchiné
film profile]) has been granted CNC advances on receipts for his project Le fil (Mille et une productions). Taiwanese director Show-Chun Lee is making her feature debut Shanghai-Belleville (Charivari Films).

After his short Embrasser les tigres (“Kissing Tigers), which won acclaim on the international festival circuit, Teddy Lussi is busy fine-tuning his project Jimmy Rivière for Kazak Productions, who has also taken under its wings Un cas isolé (“An Isolated Case”) by Guillaume Brac (recently assistant director on Park [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Arnaud des Pallières and Emmanuel Mouret’s Shall We Kiss ? [+see also:
trailer
film profile]).

This year the Angers Workshop masterclasses will look at the theme of audio sound with Jean-Marie Barbe (director of the Lussas Documentary Film Festival) and director and DoP (also for Dardenne brothers) Benoît Dervaux (La Petite Chartreuse [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Stormy Weather).

Ferran and Jeanne Moreau will hold a debate on working with actors while Miller and DoP Jérôme Alméras will look at the issue of digital image and Yann Dedet at editing. Alain Bergala will analyse the theme of point of view, while music will be discussed by Béatrice Thiriet.

Lastly, Claude Miller and Bensaïdi will examine production aspects.

(Translated from French)