Country: France, Spain, Germany, Portugal
Year: 2022
Duration: 163'
On the French Polynesian island of Tahiti, the High Commissioner of the Republic and French government official De Roller is a calculating man with flawless manners. His somewhat broad perception of his role brings him to navigate the high end "establishment" as well as shady venues where he mingles with the locals. Especially since a persistent rumour has been going around: the sighting of a submarine whose ghostly presence could herald the return of French nuclear testing.
Biography
film director
Albert Serra
(Banyoles, Spain, 1975) is a Catalan artist and director. Having studied philosophy and literature, he wrote plays and produced different video works. He gained an international recognition in 2016 with his first long feature, Honor of the Knights, a free adaptation of Don Quijote which was selected at Cannes' Directors Fortnight and won Best Film award at TFF. For his second film, Birdsong (2008), he took inspiration in a traditional Catalan Christmas song: this film too premiered at Directors Fortnight, and then was selected in many film festival among which TFF. In 2013, the Centre Pompidou in Paris gave him a carte blanche for a correspondence with the Argentinian director Lisandro Alonso. The same year he received the Golden Leopard in Locarno for his new film Story of my Death, inspired by Casanova’s memoirs, which was then selected in Turin. After Roi Soleil, Best Film at FID Marseille, he directed Liberté (2019), which premiere at Certain regard in Cannes and then at TFF. Pacifiction (2022) was selected in Cannes, in competition.
FILMOGRAFIA
Honor de Cavalleria (2006), El cant dels ocells (2008), Història de la meva mort (2013), La mort de Louis XIV (2016), Roi Soleil (2018), Liberté (2019), Pacifiction (2022).
Declaration
film director
“It isn’t the first time that I’ve made a film taking place ‘in the present.’ I’ve already made several, to my great enjoyment, in connection with commissions for the contemporary art world. The original project for Pacifiction was that of a film taking place in France. Yet, I didn’t whatsoever want to film in Paris, the banality and dreariness of mainland bourgeois France with its streets and its cafés… I wanted something different, I wanted to go somewhere far away. Why not the French overseas territories? Little by little, a subject emerged, and I wrote a complete screenplay that is quite traditional in its construction. Contrary to what people might think, I enjoy writing screenplays. This one, in particular, is inspired by Tarita Tériipaia’s memoires. Tarita was married to Marlon Brando for ten years. They’d met while filming Mutiny on The Bounty (1962), in which she had one of the leading roles. In her memoires, she talks about her life with the actor, but also about her childhood. I found the contrasts that she brought up very interesting, first of all between the pure innocence of her childhood in Papeete and the sometimes noxious presence of the Westerners, secondly between this pristine paradise on earth and the arrival of a Hollywood filming crew. The rapport between an ideal paradise and actual corruption, but also between a certain reality and cinema’s make believe appeared rather inspiring to me.”
Cast
& Credits
DIRECTOR: Albert Serra. SCREENPLAY: Albert Serra, Baptiste Pinteaux. CINEMATOGRAPHY: Artur Tort. FILM EDITING: Albert Serra, Ariadna Ribas, Artur Tort. PRODUCTION DESIGN: Sebastian Vogler. COSTUME DESIGN: Práxedes de Vilallonga. MUSIC: Marc Verdaguer. SOUND: Jordi Ribas, Benjamin Laurent, Bruno Tarriere. CAST: Benoit Magimel, Pahoa Mahagafanau, Marc Susini, Matahi Pambrun, Alexandre Melo, Sergi Lopez. PRODUCTION: Idéale Audience Group, Andergraun Films, Tamtam Film, Rosa Filmes. COPRODUCTION: Arte France Cinéma, Bayerischer, Rundfunk, Archipel Production.
CONTACT:
Movies Inspired commerciale@moviesinspired.it
