Cinéma du Réel 2012
The Cinéma du Réel has chosen its competition films for the 34th edition of the festival that takes place in the Centre Pompidou in Paris March 22 to April 3.
15 films have been taken for the International Competition and the International First Films Competition. Many are world premieres, some international premeieres and some French premieres. Among the latter you find the success ”Five Broken Cameras” (photo) by Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi and ”Two Years at Sea” by Ben Rivers. There is a competition of short documentaries, very much welcomed of course, a French section of course – more than 200 films are screened and there are workshops and tributes with/to John Gianvito, Dick Fontaine, Susana de Sousa Dias, Mario Ruspoli and Raúl Ruiz.
“Arrested Cinema” is a section where “From Iran to China, from Syria to Tibet, many filmmakers, documentarists, artists or ordinary demonstrators have been arrested, imprisoned, confined to their residence or killed. With its new “Arrested cinema” section the festival aims to create a space each year and give regular news updates for a cinema confined to resistance.
And to stay on the political track there is, again. A section called “Exploring Documentary: Combatants” which is “A tribute to the filmmakers who have fought and continue to fight on liberation fronts, using deadly weapons (rifles, machine guns), non-deadly weapons (cameras, tracts…) or the two together. With films by Tobias Engel, Margaret Dickinson, Jocelyne Saab, Clarisse Hahn, Deborah Shaffer, Jean-Michel Humeau, Dick Fontaine and some films of the Slon-Iskra audiovisual collection.”
