The fourteenth session of the French Institute's La Fabrique Cinéma took place at the Cannes Film Festival from May 17 to 28, 2022.
Creation is an emergency. To emancipate ourselves from social-cultural determinisms, to repair broken destinies, to offer the eyes of all the hidden beauty of secret places.
Pierre Lescure, President of the Cannes Film Festival
The sponsor
Midi Z
Sponsor of the French Institute's Fabrique Cinéma 2022
Midi Z was born in 1982 in Lashio (Burma), on the Chinese border. Midi Z left to study printing and industrial design in Taiwan at the age of 16, before learning to make films on his own. Drawing on his historical interest in the Chinese diaspora and his own experience of uprooting, he describes the realities of life for Chinese-speaking communities in Burma. He has focused on issues such as drug trafficking, illegal immigration, jade mining and extreme poverty. With a low budget for his productions, he also has to work in a context of censorship by the Burmese government. Despite this, his energetic works reveal formal rigor, meticulous narrative structure and elaborate camerawork. Drawing inspiration from personal experience, he has developed a distinctive style through his authentic, intimate portraits filled with compassion for the people he films.
His first film, Return to Burma (2011), was nominated in the New Currents section of the Busan International Film Festival and at the Rotterdam International Film Festival. In 2014, his film Ice Poison is selected at the Berlinale and wins Best International Film at the Edinburgh Film Festival, also representing Taiwan at the Oscars. In 2016, Farewell Mandalay wins the FEDEORA award for Best Film at the Venice Film Festival. Midi Z has also directed three documentaries, including City of Jade, presented at the 2016 Berlinale and nominated in the Best Documentary category at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards and the Taipei Golden Horse Awards, as well as receiving a special mention at the Yamagata International Documentary Festival; and 14 Apples, presented at the 2018 Berlinale. His latest film, Nina Wu, has been selected for the 2019 Cannes Film Festival.
When you take stock of yourself, think back to your past, for you are perhaps the fruit of the voluntary or involuntary actions you've committed over the years.
Ten years ago, Farewell Mandalay was selected at the French Institute's La Fabrique Cinéma. On May 16, 2012, I arrived in Cannes. The weather was so nice I wanted to swim in the sea; a walk on the beach would have been nice enough. A week later, I left Cannes without having had a swim or a walk. In fact, I couldn't swim, but that was mainly because I had meetings all the time, as well as master classes. I remember one day attending fifteen meetings, during which I spoke to people working in all areas of filmmaking. I learned a lot from these exchanges, and it helped me better understand the freedoms and constraints of filmmaking. This kind of awareness is particularly important for directors like me, who demand artistic freedom while working in a region where films are subject to countless constraints. You have to be aware of these constraints and find a form of "freedom" in them.
In the blink of an eye, ten years have passed.
In 2019, I returned to Cannes with Nina Wu. Although I'd learned to swim, I still didn't have the time to go, but at least I went for a walk, feeling lucky to be able to continue making films.
In 2020, the global pandemic prevented me from shooting a new film. In 2021, political unrest in Burma compromised another film set in the country. Meanwhile, all my family and friends back home had COVID, and I was extremely anxious. I felt powerless against the unpredictability of this world. Then I realized that making films was the only thing I could bring to the world, so I set about writing a new screenplay. I feel so passionate, as if I'm back to being the novice sitting in the pavilion at La Fabrique, drinking coffee, gazing at the sea and preparing to face all the difficulties. We're bound to come across all kinds of constraints, but I think we'll end up finding a form of freedom in them.
The 14th edition was also
- Midi Z, the first sponsor to take part in La Fabrique Cinéma, ten years ago, in 2012
- A first participation from Mexico and Pakistan
- Abinash Bikram Shah, the 2022 winner, was also competing in official competition, with the short film Lori
.
Our partners
- France Médias Monde (RFI, France 24, MC Doualya)
- SACEM
- OIF (Organisation internationale de la Francophonie)