23rd Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival
Artifices
director: François Reichenbach
original title: Artifices
country: France
year: 1963
running time: 10 min.
Czech Premiere
synopsis
A group of French pupils asks their American peers – what is the Far West? The young Americans answer with their teacher’s help. The director transforms the children’s statements into images, and shows how the state instills an official opinion on the Far West. Are we watching a visual rhapsody or is it a politically engaged cinéma direct documentary?
biography
François Reichenbach (1921-1993) was a filmmaker influenced by the travels of his youth. In his work, he addressed topics such as the relationship of France and the USA and shot portraits of renowned international artists.
more about film
| producer: | Les Films de la Pléiade |
other films in the section
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
Filmed in the village of Livinière in the Lozère district, locals talk about their work and lives in a time when the area is threatened with depopulation and the extinction of traditional farming methods. The goal was to record the opinions of these people living in relative isolation, thus affecting the truth about the situation.
Strangers of the Earth
Mario Ruspoli
France / 1961 / 40 min.
section: Direct Vérité
Czech Premiere
Toreadors call their first entrance into the arena the “moment of truth”. We follow one such moment in the life of a Mexican toreador who is later considered one of the best bullfighters of all time. The camera becomes part of reality, without any additional commentary, only the soundtrack and editing give meaning to Lomelin’s gestures and emotions and those of his family.
Lomelin
François Reichenbach
France / 1965 / 22 min.
section: Direct Vérité
Czech Premiere
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
With his creative concept, the creator of this film about wrestling completely exceeds simple match reporting. The viewers have more information than the fans in the hall and can assess not only the match, but also the reaction of the spectators. The music selection (Bach, Vivaldi) also draws attention to the fact that it’s more like a theatrical production.
Wrestling
Michel Brault, Marcel Carrière, Claude Fournier, Claude Jutra
Canada / 1961 / 28 min.
section: Direct Vérité
European 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
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
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
The work of D. A. Pennebaker is absolutely vital to any understanding of the development of cinéma vérité outside of France, and his documentary about Bob Dylan is the essence of this style. First shown in 1967, it was an unexpected hit with audiences and subsequently became the model for future music documentaries even though it is nothing more than a record of Dylan’s 1965 tour of England.
Don´t Look Back
Donn Alan Pennebaker
United States / 1967 / 95 min.
section: Direct Vérité
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
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.
The Little Café
François Reichenbach
France / 1963 / 12 min.
section: Direct Vérité
Czech Premiere
A short film from the TV documentary series The Candid Eye, which was quite innovative content-wise and intended to show a new way of filming. The goal in this particular case was to visually and aurally capture the numbing drudgery of seasonal tobacco pickers. Despite this, at some moments the direction took on a certain aesthetic aspect.
CANDID EYE (1958-1960): The Back-breaking Leaf
Terence Macartney-Filgate, Wolf Koenig, Roman Kroitor
Canada / 1959 / 29 min.
section: Direct Vérité
Czech Premiere
