From February 26 - March 4, Un Film Dramatique will be available to stream via Acropolis Cinema and Cinema Guild Acropolis will receive 50% of all revenue.
Commissioned as a dedicated artwork for the newly constructed Dora Maar middle school on the outskirts of Paris, Un Film Dramatique is a lively portrait of the first class to attend the school, filmed over the course of four years. The group of 21 middle schoolers discuss the drama of their daily lives and experiment with cameras and equipment. They are the film’s subjects, and also its makers.
With a refreshingly uninhibited approach, Baudelaire (Letters to Max, The Anabasis of May...) offers a new perspective on the realities of our current socio-political moment that is both playful and purposeful. As the students debate the approaching elections and the immigration crisis, they also seek to answer a key political question—what are we doing here together?
A work of refreshing spontaneity and continuous revelation.
- Jordan M. Smith, Nonfics
[A] rare film that conveys the capacious lyricism we tend to associate with the cinema of Agnès Varda. This is one of the year’s very best.
- Michael Sicinski, Cinema Scope
A worthwhile, inspiring project – and the kind of opportunity that might go some way towards putting the kids from the 93 on a level playing field with those from more privileged backgrounds.
- Cath Clark, The Gaurdian
As the years pass, the shaky camerawork grows more assured, and pupil after pupil disappears from the project, the true drama becomes time itself, which neither life nor cinema can escape.
- James Lattimer, The Brooklyn Rail
A lovely and intimate work that explores the possibilities of the cinematic medium, what it means to tell a story, and the power and liberation in shaping a narrative—all through the eyes of middle-schoolers.
- Demi Kampakis, Reverse Shot
(Available to download after screening date)