27° TORINO FILM FESTIVAL
THE CAMBODIAN ROOM - SITUATIONS WITH ANTOINE D'AGATA
by Tommaso Lusena De Sarmiento, Giuseppe Schillaci
Country: Italy, France
Year: 2009
Duration: 55'
THE CAMBODIAN ROOM - SITUATIONS WITH ANTOINE D’AGATA “What struck us most about Antoine D’Agata’s work was the way his
Antoine D’Agata, a photographer for the Magnum Agency, spend
a few weeks in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where he lives with Lee,
a prostitute who deals ice, a South-East Asian drug similar to crack.
D’Agata has an extreme and self-destructive love story with Lee.
He smokes ice in an attempt to photograph his intimate relationship
with the woman while a journalist interviews the photographer, trying
to understand his artistic trajectory.
photographs are an archive of his own experiences of living on the edge,
as though he were trying to find a haven from the unstoppable flow
of time. This attempt, which characterizes all of photography as an
expressive means, is a struggle against death. But with him, the
awareness of the end feeds the expressive power of his photographs
in an exaggerated way. Antoine D’Agata’s images are an intimate
and fragmentary diary of the relationship between the photographer
and his subjects, the prostitutes and pushers he met during his
nocturnal wanderings on the edge of society.”
Biography
film director
Tommaso Lusena De Sarmiento
Tommaso Lusena De Sarmiento(Milan, Italy, 1977), after attending the Saint Lucas Film School in Brussels, moved to Berlin, where he prepared his graduating thesis
for the Accademia di Brera and directed his first shorts. In 2003, he moved to Rome, where he worked as assistant cameraman on sets for films such as Quiet Chaos by Antonello Grimaldi and The Return of Cagliostro di Ciprì and Maresco.
FILMOGRAFIA
filmografia essenziale/
essential filmography
Tommaso Lusena De Sarmiento:
Rotondo (cm, 2001), Caos Communication (cm, 2001), Il libro ubriaco (cm, 2001), Yol (cm, 2002), Momò (cm, doc., 2003).
Tommaso Lusena De Sarmiento, Giuseppe Schillaci:
The Cambodian Room - Situations with Antoine D’Agata (mm, doc., 2009).
Giuseppe Schillaci
(Palermo, Italy, 1978) lives in Paris, where he works as a director. He has made several documentary films for television, broadcast in festivals. He writes for the Italian literary blog “Nazione Indiana,” the French literary magazines “Atelier du Roman” and “La revue Littéraire” of Leo Scheer Editions. In 2010, her first novel, L’anno delle ceneri, was published by Nutrimenti Edizioni, candidate for the 2010 Strega Prize and finalist for the John Fante Prize. In 2015, L’età definitiva. In 2009 ha presented at TFF The Cambodian Room - Situations with Antoine D’Agata, codirected with Antoine D’Agata himself.
FILMOGRAFIA
The Cambodian Room - Situations with Antoine D’Agata (coregia con Antoine D’Agata, mm, doc., 2009), Cosmic Energy (mm, doc., 2011), Apolitics Now! Tragicommedia di una campagna elettorale (mm, doc., 2013), Tranzicion - Art et pouvoir en Albanie (mm, doc., 2017), Il Modernissimo di Bologna (mm, doc., 2022).
Cast
& Credits
regia, soggetto,
montaggio/
directors, story,
film editing
Tommaso Lusena,
Giuseppe Schillaci
fotografia/
cinematography
Tommaso Lusena
musica/music
Nicola Fescari
suono/sound
Sear Vissal
interpreti/cast
Antoine D’Agata,
Lee, Philippe Azoury
produzione/production
Downtown Pictures,
Kolam Productions
produttori/producers
Viviana Queirolo Bertoglio,
Olga Prud’Homme Farges
montaggio/
directors, story,
film editing
Tommaso Lusena,
Giuseppe Schillaci
fotografia/
cinematography
Tommaso Lusena
musica/music
Nicola Fescari
suono/sound
Sear Vissal
interpreti/cast
Antoine D’Agata,
Lee, Philippe Azoury
produzione/production
Downtown Pictures,
Kolam Productions
produttori/producers
Viviana Queirolo Bertoglio,
Olga Prud’Homme Farges
TFF
prizes
