A Film Festival Case Study
Narrative | Dramatic Features
Film Name: Separation
Genre: Drama
Length of film: 15 minutes
Date: 2021
Director: Aurélien Achache
Producer: Aurélien Achache, Jacques Bizot
Writer: Aurélien Achache
Cinematographer: Nicolas Chareyre
Editor: Ann-Sophie Wieder
Composer: Jack Bartman
Production Company: Tangible films
Budget: 60K
Financing: Crowdfunding
Shooting Format: 2:1
Screening Format: 2:1
World Premiere: Paris, Champs Elysées Film Festival
Awards: Audience Award, 2022, Champs Elysées film festival
Website
The Official Trailer for Separation
Watch the Trailer for Separation Directed by Aurélien Achache
A Short Biography of Aurélien Achache
Aurélien Achache is a French international author and director. Through moving images, he is in a quest of truth and immersion believing that cinema should be a reflection of life itself.
The Aurélien Achache Interview
indieactivity: What is your film about?
Aurélien Achache (AA): Separation is a movie about memories, and the specific bond between a mother and her son.
Tell us about the festival run, marketing and sales?
Aurélien Achache (AA): The movie has been selected to 5 Oscar Qualifying film festivals, and several international film festivals. “Separation“ won the Audience Award at the French American, Champs Elysées Film Festival, in 2022, with Arri Aster who was the guest of honor.
Give the full Official Synopsis for your film?
Aurélien Achache (AA): Set in the 1960’s, Separation it is the story of Arkhip a cosmonaut who while performing a spacewalk for the first time goes through the overview effect. This specific emotion that many cosmonauts go through, an overwhelming feeling of rediscovering the world from above for the first time. Realizing that our understanding of the world is directly connected to our physical standpoint.
Continuing with that idea, of rediscovering the world, I wanted my character Arkhip to rediscover his inner world by revisiting a specific memory, a neurosis that he wants, that he needs to understand…
The movie is divided into chapters, chapters that depict two different point of views of a same memory….
Development & Financing?
Aurélien Achache (AA): I wrote the screenplay of the movie. The movie was entirely self-produced and also had a crowdfunding campaign.
Production?
Aurélien Achache (AA): The idea of this movie was to be as historically accurate as possible. I wanted the historical background of the spatial conquest to be accurate, only then I would allow myself to create fictional characters, and let my imagination express itself. Therefore, the necessity of shooting the movie in an ex-Soviet Union country was key. Living in Paris, France, I didn’t want to shoot the film in studio, or somewhere in France, I wanted to the movie setting to be authentic.
After a few weeks of research, we chose Ukraine, for their landscapes and cultural background, also the fact that they were open to foreign productions was a very pragmatic reason why we chose to shoot there. This film was entirely shot in Kiev Ukraine in august 2021. Shooting in these real locations and working with local set designers was a big advantage to make movie feel authentic. Indeed, the very documentary style of the movie could only work if the locations felt real.
To shoot the space scenes, with cinematographer Nicolas Chareyre, we shot them in studio in Paris in TSF studios, to bring some authenticity in the performance I chose to hang the actor Paul Hamy, who played the cosmonaut almost 3 meters above the ground, so that his face, his blood pressure, every move he made would have this intensity, that I believe every cosmonaut go through, especially in the 1960’s when you were the first man to float above earth…
Finally, the editing, was made with chief editor Ann-Sophie Wieder, in Paris, for a period of 3 weeks, we had almost 8 hours of footage, and we had to organize ourselves to structure the sequences and keep track of emotion, and concentrate on portraying the memories of the cosmonaut, and creating throughout the film and evolution of these memories….
The process felt very intuitive, in the sense that this story, about a mother and her son, is very personal, and the whole technical and artistic structure of the movie is based on the relationship between these characters. Therefore, following the character dynamic through the preproduction, the shooting and the editing was the key to make this film.
Festival Preparation & Strategy?
Aurélien Achache (AA): With my distributor Eroin Films, we chose to focus on Oscar Qualifying, European, National and international film festival strategy, that would allow the movie who was shot in Ukraine, by A French crew, to actually find an international audience that would connect to this story, that I believe is a universal story about motherhood.
The Release?
Aurélien Achache (AA): The movie premiered at the Champs Elysées Film Festival, with Justine Lévêque as programmer, in 2022, where it won the Audience Award.
Advice from the Filmmaker?
Aurélien Achache (AA): The only advice I would give to a filmmaker is: No idea is impossible to achieve. The key when you have a vision, a story you feel you need to make, is to stop talking about it, but actually taking action and making it. The only way to make a movie is to actually MAKE a movie. That’s I think the most important thing I learned with “Separation”.
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