29° TORINO FILM FESTIVAL
ONDE: EUGÈNE GREEN

LE NOM DU FEU

IL NOME DEL FUOCO
by Eugène Green
Country: France
Year: 2002
Duration: 20'


A young man goes to a doctor. He tells her that he is a werewolf and invites her to witness his transformation. The metamorphosis takes place in the forest at night. Protected by the fire, the therapist tries to convince the young man that he hasn’t lost his humanity because he still has the gift of speech.

 

I have always been fascinated by werewolves, they represent the animal that remains in man and this forces us to ask ourselves: what is it, basically, that sets man apart from other living beings? To me, the answer is simple: what sets man apart is speech. A wolf, like every other wild animal, is afraid of fire. Having undergone the transformation, the werewolf feels the same blind terror of flames. But what sets it apart from the wild beast is that the werewolf can also talk. He knows the name of fire.

Biography

film director

Eugène Green

(New York, USA, 1947) moved to Paris in 1969, where in 1977 he founded the Théâtre de la Sapience, with which he staged various Baroque and modern plays. He made his directorial debut with Toutes les nuits, Prix Delluc for best debut film in 2001. He then directed Le nom du feu, presented in Locarno in 2002 and distributed together with Le monde vivant, which took part in the Directors' Fortinight. With Correspondances he was awarded in 2007, together with Harun Farocki and Pedro Costa, the special jury prize in Locarno, where he returned to competition in 2009 with A Religiosa Portuguesa and in 2014 with La Sapienza, shot between Switzerland and Italy. In 2011 TFF dedicated a retrospective to him and then went on to program several of his films, such as the documentary filmed in the Basque Country Faire la parole (2015), Le fils de Joseph (2016), which premiered at the Berlinale, and the workshop film En attendant les Barbares (2017). In 2020 he returned to the Basque Country to shoot Atarrabi et Mikelats, which was presented in San Sebastian. In addition to his activity as a director, he also works as a writer and poet.

FILMOGRAFIA

Toutes les nuits (2001), Le nom du feu (cm, 2002), Le monde vivant (2003), Le pont des arts (2004), Les signes (mm, 2006), Digital Sam in Sam Saek 2007: Memories (ep. Corrispondences, mm, 2007), A Religiosa Portuguesa (2009), La sapienza (2014), Faire la parole (doc., 2015), Le fils de Joseph (2016), En attendant les Barbares (2017), Como Fernando Pessoa salvou Portugal (cm, 2017), Lisboa revisitada (cm, 2019). Atarrabi et Mikelats (2020), Le mur des morts (2022).

Cast

& Credits

regia, sceneggiatura/director, screenplay

Eugène Green

fotografia/cinematography

Raphaël O’Byrne

montaggio/film editing

Jeanne Moutard

musica/music

Pierre Guédron

suono/sound

Frédéric de Ravignan

interpreti/cast

Christelle Prot, Alexis Loret, Lucette Desmoulins

produttore/producer

Tom Dercourt

produzione/production

Les films à un dollar

coproduzione/coproduction

Le Fresnoy 

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