28/04/2010

Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani’s debut feature Amer [+see also:
trailer
film profile] hits Belgian theatres this week. Although its release is limited (CNC is launching it on two screens), the film has considerable cult potential.

During its long festival run, the film intrigued and won over audiences, as well as picking up numerous prizes. Last weekend, it nabbed Best Debut Film at the Copenhagen Film Festival.

Amer is more than a film; it is a cinematic experience. Inspired by the Italian gialli of the 1970s, it frees the genre from its narrative pretext (the police investigation) to focus on an exploration of visuals and sound.

There is no story, but a plunge into the depths of Ana’s fantasies, a variation on the universal symbols of eroticism and sadism. The sparse dialogues make way for a magnificent work on the sound, combining agonizing noises (a grinding tooth, a scraping blade, deathly gasps…) and Italian-style old music (Morricone, Cipriani). This is bound to delight fans of the genre.

Anonymes Films thus continues its work on genre films (fantasy noir and pulp), in co-production with Tobina Films, and with backing from the Belgian French Community Film Centre, and Alpes Maritimes county.

This week’s line-up also includes three French films: Alexandre Arcady’s Comme Les Cinq Doigts de la Main [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (“Like the Five Fingers of the Hand”); François Ozon’s The Refuge [+see also:
trailer
film profile]; and Freedom [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Tony Gatlif, who this time tries his hand at a historical film, focusing once more on a gypsy community, who are here confronted with the Vichy regime.

Finally, also hitting screens is UK director Daniel Barber’s Harry Brown [+see also:
trailer
film profile].

(Translated from French)