Cannes 2011 documentary profiles

aRirang (Kor)
Dir Kim Ki-duk
The first docu-drama from Kim, Arirang is a monologue about the director’s life and film-making, and how he conveys life through his films. Kim was last at Cannes with Breath, starring Chang Chen, which played in Competition in 2007.
Sales Finecut
Un Certain Regard

At Night, They Dance (La Nuit, Elles Dansent) (Can)
Dirs Isabelle Lavigne, Stéphane Thibault
This Canadian film was shot by night in Cairo and takes us into the hidden world of belly dancing through a family of women who practise it.
Sales Autlook FilmSales
Directors’ Fortnight, special screening

Belmondo…Itineraire (Fr)
Dirs Vincent Perrot, Jeff Domenech
The subject of a tribute at Cannes on May 17, actor Jean-Paul Belmondo is an icon of French cinema with credits including Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless, and Pierrot Le Fou and Francois Truffaut’s Mississippi Mermaid. Six of Belmondo’s films have screened in Competition at Cannes and he returns to the Croisette this year, where feature documentary Belmondo… Itineraire will screen alongside new prints of The Magnificent Secret Agent by Philippe de Broca and Greed In The Sun by Henri Verneuil.
Contact France Television Distribution, (33) 1 56 22 90 87
Cannes Classics

The Big Fix (US-Fr-Ger)
Dirs Rebecca Tickell, Josh Tickell
Peter Fonda produced this film which uncovers a web of corruption in the aftermath of the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig in 2010, which resulted in the worst oil spill in history.
Contact Green Planet Productions, www.greenplanetprods.com
Official Selection, special screening

Bollywood — The Greatest Love Story Ever Told (Ind)
Dirs Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, Jeffrey Zimbalist
Produced by Shekhar Kapur and co-directed by Delhi-6’s Mehra and documentarian Zimbalist, this musical documentary is a swoon to the global phenomenon that is Hindi-language cinema. It is borne out of a conversation between Kapur and Thierry Frémaux, who spoke of his desire to find a Bollywood film he could programme in Official Selection. Cannes regular Aishwarya Rai is one of the many Bollywood figures featured.
Sales UTV
Official Selection, out of competition

Corman’s World: Exploits Of A Hollywood Rebel (US)
Dir Alex Stapleton
A homage to the legendary independent producer and actor Roger Corman featuring interviews with Corman, Robert De Niro, Jack Nicholson and Martin Scorsese among others and covering his films including Swamp Women, The Little Shop Of Horrors and Frankenstein Unbound.
Sales Fortissimo Films
Cannes Classics

Duch, Master Of The Forges Of Hell (Fr-Cambodia)
Dir Rithy Panh
Rithy Panh documents a face-to-face encounter with Kaing Guek Eav, aka Duch, the man who was in charge of the Khmer Rouge killing machine which murdered more than 12,000 people between 1975 and 1979, and countless others whose deaths went undocumented. Panh illustrates the minutiae of the Angkar and shows how Duch obsessively followed the dictates of the organisation to commit the collective crime.
Sales Films Distribution
Official Selection, special screening

Kids Of Today (Des Jeunes Gens Modernes) (Fr)
Dir Jérome de Missolz
Having explored the 1980s and 1990s music scene in Liverpool in You’ll Never Walk Alone and the rock world in Wild Thing, French documentary maker de Missolz turns his attention to France’s post-punk, New Wave movement, spanning the late 1970s to the early 1980s. Alongside writer Jean-Francois Sanz, de Missolz revisits the era and a number of its protagonists — such as music critic Yves Adrien, pop icon Lio and Andy Warhol muse Edwige — as well as looking at its legacy today.
Sales Memento Films International
Directors’ Fortnight

Kurosawa’s Way (Fr)
Dir Catherine Cadou
Eleven film-makers from Europe, Asia and the US discuss Akira Kurosawa and how he influenced their own work. They include Bernardo Bertolucci, Clint Eastwood, Hayao Miyazaki, Martin Scorsese, Theo Angelopoulos and Bong Joon-ho.
Sales Canal Plus
Cannes Classics

Leadersheep (Fr)
Dir Christian Rouaud
A special screening in Official Selection at Cannes, this 1970s-set feature documentary tells the story of a group of isolated farmers who take on the French government after it announces plans to extend a military camp in the region from 3,000 to 14,000 hectares. A struggle is set in motion which lasts for a decade. Produced by Elzévir Films, LeaderSheep will be released in France by Ad Vitam.
Sales MK2, juliette.schrameck@mk2.com
Official Selection, Special Screening

The Look (Ger-Fr)
Dir Angelina Maccarone
An unconventional portrait of iconic actress Charlotte Rampling in which Rampling herself probes the questions of life with eight artists including photographers Peter Lindbergh and Juergen Teller, writer Paul Auster and painter Anthony Palliser.
Sales MK2
Cannes Classics

Michel Petrucciani (Fr-Ger-It)
Dir Michael Radford
Radford will be in Cannes along with Alexandre Petrucciani, the son of the brilliant jazz artist of the title, who was born with brittle bone disease and stood just three feet tall as an adult. Radford explores the man through interviews and archive material, and conveys his extraordinary lust for life.
Sales Wild Bunch
Official Selection, special screening

No More Fear (Tun)
Dir Mourad Ben Cheikh
A documentary about the recent Tunisian revolution which sparked the so-called Arab Spring, Mourad Ben Cheikh’s film explores the uprising and the territory’s frame of mind — from the youth who mounted the first revolution of the virtual era to the older people who have defied fear to resist dictatorship. It is produced by Cinetelefilms in Tunisia.
Sales Cinetelefilms, mh.attia@cinetelefilms.net
Official Selection, special screening

The Night Watchman (El Velador) (US-Mex-Fr)
Dir Natalia Almada
A special screening in Directors’ Fortnight, The Night Watchman is a Spanish-language documentary following Martin, who watches over the extravagant mausoleums of Mexico’s drug lords night after night. It is a reminder of how ordinary life continues amid the turmoil of the country’s bloody drug wars. The Night Watchman is produced by Mexico’s Altamura Films, co-produced by POV in the US and associate-produced by France’s Tita Production and Les Films d’Ici.
Sales Doc & Film International, d.elstner@docandfilm.com
Directors’ Fortnight, special screening

Walk Away Renée (US)
Dir Jonathan Caouette
Caouette made a name for himself with Tarnation, an unflinching autobiographical look at his relationship with his schizophrenic mother. It played in Cannes in 2004 and, seven years later, Caouette returns with Walk Away Renée, in which he embarks on a road trip with his mother. Over the course of the journey, the director deploys flashbacks, psychedelic sequences and his own imagination to illustrate their relationship.
Int’l sales Wild Bunch
Critics’ Week, special screening