Smugglers’ Songs
Rendez-Vous with French Cinema 2012
March 1 - 11, 2012
Director Rabah Ameur-Zaïméche in person for March 8 screening!
The 18th century folk hero and bandit Louis Mandrin is the inspiration for this strikingly relevant period tale, tracing the efforts of Mandrin’s followers to distribute his songs and stories in the build-up to the French Revolution.
Louis Mandrin was a notorious, Robin Hood-like bandit in the years before the French Revolution; eventually, he was captured and executed, but his legend lived on in music, films and TV series. This is the point of departure for Rabah Ameur-ZaÏmeche’s fourth feature: following the hanging of Mandrin, members of his band set up a kind of underground network to publish and distribute his songs and stories, hoping to create “a framework for the republic.” They are helped in their efforts by the support of the Marquis de Levezin (Jacques Nolot), a wistful aristocrat who believes in Mandrin and his followers even though he knows they signal the end of his kind. Marking the director’s first foray into period filmmaking, Smugglers’ Songs nevertheless has a strikingly contemporary feel; shot on digital, and with a broad ethnic mix of actors, the film seems torn from today’s headlines even as it anticipates the Revolution. In person for March 8 screening: director Rabah Ameur-Zaïméche.
Read More
Kamal Aljafari on With Hasan in Gaza and ‘The Camera of the Dispossessed’
Our 63rd New York Film Festival Talks featured a special conversation with With Hasan in Gaza director Kamal Aljafari, moderated by Film Comment editor Devika Girish.
Lucrecia Martel on Our Land (Nuestra Tierra), the Filmmaker’s First Feature Documentary
On the latest episode of FLC Luminaries, our video series that spotlights talent at all levels of the filmmaking process who uplift the art and craft of cinema, Our Land (Nuestra Tierra) director Lucrecia Martel discusses her expansive and enlightening first feature documentary.
Carla Simón on Her Poignantly Autobiographical Romería
This week we’re excited to present a conversation from the 63rd New York Film Festival with Romería director Carla Simón, moderated by NYFF Main Slate selection committee member Florence Almozini.
