INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL ROTTERDAM 2007
French cinema will once again enjoy a place of honour at the 36th Rotterdam Film Festival, starring great actresses and filmmakers together with numerous representatives of the variety and the talent of emerging French cinema as well as many co-productions with southern countries.
French actress BULLE OGIER, muse of the author's cinema, from Bunuel to Rivette, will revere the Festival with her presence to support BELLE TOUJOURS, a French Portuguese co-production by a grand Master of world cinema, MANUEL DE OLIVEIRA.
After having both been honoured by the IFFR with a retrospective of their essential contribution to world filmmaking, BENOIT JACQUOT, Filmmaker in focus 2005, and JEAN-CLAUDE BRISSEAU, Filmmaker in focus 2003, will return to the Festival to present their last opuses. BENOIT JACQUOT will be attending Rotterdam with ISILD LE BESCO, starring in his most recent production L'INTOUCHABLE. The actress's remarkable performance of an identity quest in India has been distinguished by the Marcello Mastroianni Award at the last Venice Film Festival.
JEAN-CLAUDE BRISSEAU, together with his young actress MARIE ALLAN, will be lining up in the Maestros: Kings and Aces section with LES ANGES EXTERMINATEURS, his newest sulfurous production with a background of scandal and legal proceedings around the film's groundwork.
Other Masters of French cinema will also take the trip to Rotterdam to present their latest pictures in the Maestros: Kings and Aces section: OTAR IOSSELIANI with JARDINS EN AUTOMNE, starring Michel Piccoli disguised as an old women, as well as the iconoclastic LUC MOULLET with his latest feature, PRESTIGE DE LA MORT.
As each year, the new generation of French filmmakers will be attending to meet Rotterdam’s public and professionals with challenging and bright productions topping the bill in the Sturm und Drang section: the Tübingen Festival awarded 7 ANS by JEAN-PASCAL HATTU, COWBOY ANGELS, first feature by KIM MASSEE, PARDONNEZ-MOI by MAÏWENN as well as BEAU MATIN by Charlotte and David LOWE.
The renewed video artist ARIANE MICHEL will present her first feature, LES HOMMES. DOUGLAS GORDON and PHILIPPE PARRENO’ film ZIDANE: UN PORTRAIT DU XXI SIECLE, will be also shown in Rotterdam. A unique experience of a live football match with the world star, at the crossroads between sport cinema and art.
Last but not least, CLAIRE SIMON will be upholding her movie ÇA BRULE, also selected in Cannes 06 Director’s fortnight.
Underlining the leading role of France in world cinema, numerous French co-productions are again selected in all sections of the Rotterdam Film Festival 2007. Among them, the critic’s praised BAMAKO, by ABDERRAHMANE SISSAKO, one of this edition’s two ‘Filmmakers in Focus’, BLED NUMBER ONE by the RABAH AMEUR-ZAIMECHE (Algeria), DARATT by MAHAMAT-SALEH HAROUN (Chad), the French-Congo production KINSHASA PALACE by ZEKA LAPLAINE and WWW-WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD by Moroccan filmmaker FAOUZI BENSAïDI. All filmmakers will be attending the IFFR to present their films.
