Cinéma du Reél, the documentary festival of Paris, opens its 37th edition tonight, Thursday, March 19, and continues through Sunday, March 30. While programming remains geared to visual anthropology, this year’s event also has stated an openness to flexible considerations of nonfiction forms, represented by opening night selection AUSTERLITZ, a hybrid by Stan Neumann which draws inspiration from a novel by WG Sebald. The event’s various special screenings, retrospectives, and tributes – covering a range of creators from Haskell Wexler to Amit Dutta, and exploring nonfiction from China to Greece – also attempt to bridge the past with the future. The focus below, however, remains on the newer films in the fest’s lineup, as represented in its three feature competition sections:
The International Competition includes eleven works, among them: Giovanni Cioni’s FROM THE RETURN, which revisits the Mauthausen concentration camp; Stéphane Breton’s DARK FORESTS, which looks at a small Siberian community; Gueorgui Balabanov’s AND THE PARTY GOES ON AND ON…, a portrait of modern-day Bulgaria; Zhantao Song’s IN THE UNDERGROUND, an exploration of life and work around a Chinese mine; Lydie Wisshaupt-Claudel’s KILLING TIME, a meditation on California’s Twentynine Palms military base; and Nicolás Rincón Gille’s WOUNDED NIGHT (pictured), about a displaced Colombian grandmother who tries to maintain her family.
Ten features representing national cinema compete in the French Competition, including: Paul Costes’ THE BLUE ROOM, the filmmaker’s look back at his deceased father through old family movies; Damien Fritsch’s C’EST MA VIE QUI ME REGARDE, a portrait of a recent widow; Gaspar Zurita and Chloé Inguenaud’s ALWAYS AND AGAIN, which observes the quotidian routines of Neapolitan women; Natacha Samuel and Florent Klockenbring’s GAM GAM, following a Burkina Fasan working in France as he returns home for a short visit; and Matthieu Bareyre’s NOCTURNES (pictured), an immersion into the horse track.
Finally, nine new filmmakers vie for recognition in the First Films International Competition, including: Sabrina Jäger’s THE PRICE WAS KEY, which follows the shuttering of a German store; Ljupcho Temelkovski’s MARGINA (pictured), about a Macedonian Roma family’s struggle to survive; Frida Kempff’s WINTER BUOY, which looks at the help provided to pregnant drug addicts in Toronto; and Denis Klebleev’s STRANGE PARTICLES, a portrait of a would-be quantum physicist at summer camp.
what (not) to doc 