Francine Cadet

A film about an ongoing cinematic adventure that began in 1978: a vast anthology of personality portraits called Cinématons, dealing with people in the arts. Historical, ethnological, sociological and psychological, this anthology is a living record of the artistic community of the last 20th century which attempts to answer these questions: Why film everyone? Why choose cultural personalities? How do the subjects look at their image? How much exhibitionism and narcissism is involved in being filmed?

France works at her family’s karaoke restaurant on an old boat at the shores of lake Nam Ngum. She falls in love with Xana, an underwater logger, while Tony Wong, a quiet and sentimental Chinese billionaire which is exploiting this subwater richness declares his heart to her. It’s then that Hugo arrives in search of his wife Nadine who left one year ago… He enters a surreal period of exile, captivated by life around the lake’s splendour.

Tommaso and Arturo are on the run in a remote forest. They hunt for food, trying to survive and find their way through the lush nature. It’s quiet, almost peaceful, until the sound of gunshots… Many years later, this forest has a wolf problem. It’s here where Ariane discovers a strange hole in the ground. Could she be the woman referred to in the valley’s legends?

Avignon. Irma, who doesn’t seem to find her place in the world crosses paths with Dolores, a free and uninhibited woman who is in a mission to write a gay-friendly travel guide on a forgotten area in Provence. The unlikely duo takes to the road and contrary to the saught after pittoresque and sexy Provence, they discover a world more complex and a warm-hearted humanity, struggling to exist. For both of them the trip becomes a initiatory journey.

The panoramic shots are breathtaking: a majestic mountain landscape in winter, flat-roofed tin shacks cowering next to one other, women perched on steep slopes using primitive tools to break through pieces of rock. La Rinconada is situated over 5,000 meters high in the Peruvian Andes, on the edge of a gold mine. This 21st century El Dorado is an inhospitable place, where untold numbers of people live and work in the most precarious of conditions, hoping both for gold and a better life. Salomé Lamas has constructed a cinematic diptych to convey the extremity of this situation and the dimensions of its misery without having to resort to graphic images.