Once again this year, Columbia filmmakers had a strong showing at the Cannes Film Festival.
Fellipe Gamarano Barbosa's '06 second film, Gabriel and the Mountain, premiered as part of the festival's Critics' Week, and received the France 4
Visionary Award and the Gan Foundation Support for Distribution Award, two of the top prizes given out to films in the Critics' Week lineup. The film, according to IndieWire, concerns a young man who “decides to travel the world for one year, his backpack full of dreams. After ten months on the road, he arrives in Kenya determined to discover the African continent—until he reaches the top of Mount Mulanje, Malawi, his last destination.” Barbosa previously directed and co-wrote Casa Grande. A trailer can be viewed here.
Mounia Akl '17, who received her MFA in Screenwriting/Directing, showed a short film, Submarine, at the festival. “Set at the backdrop of Lebanon's current garbage crisis and its sociopolitical context,” the film’s fundraising page on Indiegogo says, “Submarine takes a look at those who find themselves forced to leave their home, and everything it represents.” Akl worked with two fellow Columbia affiliates on the film: co-writer Clara Roquet and Cyril Aris, who served as producer. The film premiered at the 2016 Columbia University Film Festival. A trailer can be viewed here.
Andrea Chignoli '07 had two films at Cannes: The Desert Bride and La Familia, both of which she worked on as an editor. The Desert Bride, according to The Hollywood Reporter, concerns a “mousy” woman “who has never known much fulfillment, until an interlude in the rugged Argentinean hinterland liberates the spirit trapped within her.” The magazine added that the “spareness of both the physical and emotional landscapes yields something quite delicate in a film with the grace and economy of a satisfying short story.” A trailer can be viewed here.
The Hollywood Reporter called La Familia, the first film by director Gustavo Rondon Cordova, a “lean and mean debut.” It concerns a “father and his 12-year-old kid from the outskirts of Caracas [who] have to run after the son knifes down a peer from a potentially vengeful family in the slums,” according to the magazine. Watch the trailer here.
The Cannes Film Festival, which was founded in 1946, is widely regarded as the most prestigious in the film industry.
