23rd Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival
The Little Café
director: François Reichenbach
original title: Le Petit Café
country: France
year: 1963
running time: 12 min.
Czech Premiere
synopsis
Reichenbach was an innovative filmmaker who filmed everything around him using primarily his intuition. Instead of filming portraits of people, he made a portrait of a little café, where people are considered props and a spontaneously filmed telephone conversation between the café owner and a customer becomes the plot.
biography
François Reichenbach (1921-1993) was a filmmaker influenced by his own youth when he travelled around the world. In his work, he addressed topics such as the relationship between France and the USA, or created portraits of famous international artists.
more about film
| producer: | Pierre Braunberger |
| script: | François Reichenbach |
| photography: | Jean-Marc Ripert, François Reichenbach |
| editing: | Guy Gilles |
other films in the section
The film is made up of the eponymous medium-length film and the short film The Prisoner Party. The director’s goal was for the viewers to better comprehend the everyday life of patients and doctors at the psychiatric hospital in Saint-Alban, where the first experiments with psychotherapy took place. The commentary uses Artaud’s texts on madness.
An Insight into Madness, The Prisoner Party
Mario Ruspoli
France / 1961 / 53 min.
section: Direct Vérité
Czech Premiere
Or, how to become a Frenchman in a few lessons. It’s the essence of cinéma vérité, combining an essayistic approach with an effort to capture raw reality in all its truth, but at the same time, we’re watching a documentary version of The Firemen’s Ball in the French countryside.
The Village Pleasure
François Reichenbach
France / 1963 / 47 min.
section: Direct Vérité
Czech Premiere
Rouch doesn’t pursue reality - he provokes it. The camera isn’t hidden but stands in the forefront. This sociological documentary about the clash of white and black cultures is based on improvisation. This simulation of the coexistence of dozens of boys and girls is an attempt to capture the essence of real existing facts and Rouch’s concept of cinéma vérité.
The Human Pyramid
Jean Rouch
France / 1961 / 88 min.
section: Direct Vérité
Czech Premiere
American filmmakers are the furthest from Vertov’s notion of film-truth. The Maysles directing duo is known for reducing the influence of editing. Salesman is based on the concept of living camera: to be as close as possible to the essence of the events and preserve their ambiguity. The film’s subject are the lives of door-to-door Bible salesmen.
Salesman
Charlotte Zwerin, David Maysles, Albert Maysles
United States / 1968 / 90 min.
section: Direct Vérité
This film, by one of the most important and most productive Canadian documentary filmmakers, examines the seasonal work of a diverse group of lumberjacks, among whom are members of Canadian Indian tribes. The style combines direct cinema with a lyrical approach to the landscape, which enthralls everyone.
Manouane River Lumberjacks
Arthur Lamothe
Canada / 1962 / 28 min.
section: Direct Vérité
Czech Premiere
This sociological survey began in 1960 as a project by Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin. The film became a manifesto of cinéma vérité and was the first feature-length film in France shot with synchronous sound. Here, cinéma direct approaches combine with the new view of reality as it became established in France.
Chronicle of a Summer
Edgar Morin, Jean Rouch
France / 1961 / 90 min.
section: Direct Vérité
Until 1924, one of the ways residents of Île-aux-Coudres supported themselves was by hunting porpoises. In 1962, filmmakers decided to revive this traditional activity that brought a sense of order to lives there. What at first seemed like a crazy idea became a major direct cinema project that perfectly captures the essence of this shooting method.
For the Ones to Come
Pierre Perrault, Michel Brault
Canada / 1962 / 105 min.
section: Direct Vérité
At first glance, the film appears to be a survey about the gifted singer, the idol of a generation. The result is a unique way of observing stars through their own fans. The sound is significant here, achieving an unprecedented sense of reality. The innovative approach complements the film with staged scenes.
Lonely Boy
Wolf Koenig, Roman Kroitor
Canada / 1962 / 27 min.
section: Direct Vérité
Czech Premiere
This pillar of direct cinema captures the fame and death of race-car driver Eddie Sachs. It combines original with archival footage, black-and-white with colour film, and among other things makes use of sped-up images in order to achieve the same effect as in Primary. Again, the film tries to find the logic of the depicted events and to offer an objective take on them.
On the Pole
Robert Drew, Richard Leacock
United States / 1960 / 58 min.
section: Direct Vérité
Czech Premiere
It’s no wonder the director claims to be inspired by the work of Jean Vigo. In this film, he artfully develops his own style – dialogic commentary, corpses, slowed-down scenes, and parallel montages. The result is an image of white and black society. The film was censored in Canada due to its scenes from Cuba and Fidel Castro giving a speech.
Seeing Miami...
Gilles Groulx
Canada / 1962 / 31 min.
section: Direct Vérité
Czech Premiere
This key direct cinema film originated without a script and without the usual permits. Originally it was intended to be a short four-minute report about a traditional sport, but it was rejected. The goal was to lead viewers away from traditional reportage documentaries. The film showed how to exempt documentary from the rules.
The Snowshoers
Michel Brault, Gilles Groulx
Canada / 1958 / 15 min.
section: Direct Vérité
The collective narrative film Paris Through the Eyes Of... was intended as a New Wave manifesto with the goal of reviving interest in it. It didn’t quite happen, though, but an interesting work was created, part of which is the story of Odile, who has a fight with her husband and meets a mysterious man. It was shot as two long single takes on 16mm film and later transferred to 35mm.
Gare du Nord
Jean Rouch
France / 1965 / 16 min.
section: Direct Vérité
Czech Premiere
