Directing
The image of a mysterious, solitary filmmaker - a cineaste maudit - who flees from both the media and the public, is unrelentingly bound to the figure of Leos Carax, in France. Elsewhere, the real focus is on his films and he is considered to be an icon of world cinema. Mr.X dives into the poetic and visionary world of an artist who was already a cult figure from his very first film. Punctuated by interviews and unseen footage, this documentary is most of all a fine-tuned exploration of the poetic and visionary world of Leos Carax, alias "Mr.X".
In the work of Jack Garfein - Holocaust survivor, theater and film director, key figure in the formation of the Actors Studio - past and and present freely intermingled to contribute to memorable stage productions and in two films, many which were ahead of their time in tackling such issues as homosexuality, race and violence. Powered by his vivid recollections and augmented with readings by Willem Dafoe, The Wild One traces Garfein’s life: his Czechoslovakian youth, his family’s fleeing the Nazis, surviving in Auschwitz and other camps, his 1946 arrival at 16 in New York and coming under the wing of Lee Strasberg, Hollywood, his marriage to actress Carroll Baker.
In 2014, the movie « Mommy » directed by Xavier Dolan, got the Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. This was a great achievement for this director prodigy from Quebec, who had just turned 25. The script - a tumultuous relationship between a single mother and his hyperactive and violent son - and the bold direction electrified the audience. Shot in Montreal, the documentary by Tessa Louise Salomé tells the genesis of this family drama. It also reveals the failures of the society in Quebec : the failure of the mental institution and the impoverishment of the middle class.
A making-of documentary of Leos Carax's Holy Motors. Present during the shoot, Salomé catches exacting and inspiring moments of the production and adds interviews with its main participants (the actors Denis Lavant, Edith Scob, and Kylie Minogue, and the cinematographer, Caroline Champetier).
In 2008 French filmmaker Julie Gali traveled to the US to film the election of Barack Obama. In spite of this victory for civil rights, it soon became apparent that the rights of another minority were under threat. In California the passing of Proposition 8 marked the only time in U.S. history that a civil right was actually taken away after it had been granted. Upon seeing this, Ms. Gali decided to immerse herself in the growing grassroots struggle of the gay community, which culminated in the October 11, 2009 March for Equality in Washington DC.
Despite a war raging close by, mud treatments and electroshock therapies continue at Kuyalnik Sanatorium, an enormous 1970s brutalist building on the shores of Odesa, where a small group search for love, healing, and happiness.
