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PRODUCTION / FUNDING France

Alice Diop stakes her bets on We

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- The filmmaker’s new documentary - an Athénaïse production sold by Totem Films – is set to world premiere in the Berlinale’s Encounters competition

Alice Diop stakes her bets on We

Enjoying great acclaim for On Call [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
(the winner of Cinéma du Réel’s French competition in 2016, which also competed in Karlovy Vary that same year), for the mid-length film Vers la tendresse (crowned 2017’s Best Short Film at the Césars) and for La mort de Danton (honoured with an award at Cinéma du Réel in 2011), French filmmaker Alice Diop is set to unveil her new documentary We [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Alice Diop
film profile
]
within the 71st Berlinale’s Encounters competition, where it will enjoy its world premiere as part of the Industry Event (running 1 – 5 March).

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Written by the director (before she tried her hand at fiction in the form of Saint Omer [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Alice Diop
interview: Kayije Kagame
film profile
]
), the story unfolds around an urban train link, the RER B, which crosses Paris and its outskirts from north to south. It journeys across these indistinct spaces known as inner cities and suburbs, resulting in various encounters involving a cleaning lady in Roissy, a scrap merchant in Bourget, a nurse in Drancy, a writer in Gif-sur-Yvette, a hunt follower in the Chevreuse Valley and the filmmaker herself who revisits the area where she grew up; portraits representing a variety of individual pieces, which come together to form a whole and a potential “We”.

According to Alice Diop, "What a short story collection is in literature, WE aims to be in film. A succession of stories and portraits threaded together over a territory that is fractured despite the suburban rail link running across it". A collection of small islands brought together in a film that attempts to grasp something of life in modern-day France’s suburbs and inner cities.

We is produced by Sophie Salbot on behalf of Athénaïse (who also partnered with the director on her two previous films) and is co-produced by Arte France. The film enjoys the support of Procirep-Angoa, the CNC via its Images of Diversity Fund, SOFICA company Cinécap and the Ile-de-France region. Photography was primarily helmed by Sarah Blum. We’s release in French cinemas is currently under negotiation whilst international sales are in the hands of Totem Films.

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(Translated from French)

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