F.J. Ossang

A kino-investigation about spectatorship, a continuous conversation between different kinds of spectators: which one is more cinema: Citizen Kane on a mobile phone or a football game projected in a cinema theatre? What is the cinema of uncertainty? How many kinds of amazement exist? Does fear and belief precede amazement? What are the rights and duties of the spectator? Is the essay film a manifesto against voyeurism? Should spectators be paid? What amazes the spectator of this day and age?

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This episode of Carnets filmés, Délices lointains, which spans the year 2004, reaches its climax in its last part with my trip to Mexico with the photographer Barbara Peón Solis.

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The film opens on a water-skiing accident - a girl (Délie) drives a speedboat and pulls a young man (Stan). They are both challenging their own limits when a crash occurs... Stan wakes up from a coma after this serious accident, to find out that genealogists are looking for an individual whose identity corresponds to his. Instead of asking himself questions about this testamentary filiation, he subscribes for Professor Starkov's legacy, and embarks for the country of Las Estrellas... Purging odyssey where intuition and telepathy accelerates the journey in time. Dharma Guns revisits the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice fighting with the tyranny of Time-God...

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Muinski, a dealer, lives at night in an old, mysterious project. He's accompanied by Tô, an Asian man who is dying. Tired and lacking clients, Muinski wants to shut down his business and to set up a bookstore. But he starts receiving strange packets containing black powder, an unknown drug... He tries it. One night, he invites a few friends over for a party, at the end of which his life takes a sudden turn. Under the influence of the drug, Muinski commits an irreparable crime. But things aren't as clear-cut as they seem.

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On the occasion of the 7th meetings of Digne, Pour un autre cinéma, organized by Pierre Queyrel and which presented a retrospective of Philippe Garrel's cinematographic work, this film is the sound recording of the discussion that the filmmaker made with the audience after the screening of his films Marie pour mémoire, Athanor, Voyage au jardin des morts and Le Bleu des origines.

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A young woman has managed to convince a doctor friend to deliver her from an accidental pregnancy without following official procedures. On the night of her operation, she meets a young man who happens to be an apprentice waste sorter at the hospital.

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Angstel trades in forged paintings, under the guidance of his mother, Milady. Their network extends into other murky affairs, provoking the wrath of a rival gang. Angstel falls in love with Ancetta, a prostitute, and flees with her to the north of Chile. - IFFR

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Poetic sci-fi film as an homage to Cinema, Cocteau, Goodis and to American B-series of the 1940s. Constructed exclusively on photograms in black and white and freely inspired on Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville.

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With an off-beat sense of humor to match its erratic central character, this original comedy-drama features Jean-Philippe Ecoffey as Yves, a young man who works as a cop at night. The catch is that Yves turns to petty crime during the day, partly to impress Aurore (Aurelle Doazan), a nurse he idolizes from afar. His criminal hobby seems hard to understand, since it's doubtful that they will really get him anywhere with Aurore; besides, she already has a boyfriend. Nevertheless, Yves starts out by robbing a post office and ends up trying to run over Aurore's boyfriend, an act which finally gets him into serious trouble.

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Portrait de groupe is a film series of filmed portraits that shows all kinds of groups gathered under family pretexts, friendly or professional, in a single fixed, wide shot (style: family photo) and silent of 3 minutes and 20 seconds.

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In-between essay and fiction, La dernière énigme established Ossang's formal territory: a contemporary mythology. Inspired by the book On Terrorism and the State by Gianfranco Sanguinetti, it evokes visual echoes of political events, where a generation forfeits all revolutionary aspirations due to state terrorism. Shot using two cans of Kodak XX 16mm film. - IFFR

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Early portrait of Ossang in Courant's ongoing "Cinématon" series.

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Reel 6 of Gérard Courant's on-going Cinematon series.

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"This is the story of a search, that of a woman in pursuit of her own identity. This woman, Marie-Noëlle Kauffmann, ventures into the world of representation, meets four characters who, each in their own way, give her a key to cross the five sequences/initiations of the film which are all benchmarks that she must absolutely cross to have an answer to the question: Can cinema help find a lost balance?" -Gerard Courant

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Cinématon is a 156-hour long experimental film by French director Gérard Courant. It was the longest film ever released until 2011. Composed over 36 years from 1978 until 2006, it consists of a series of over 2,821 silent vignettes (cinématons), each 3 minutes and 25 seconds long, of various celebrities, artists, journalists and friends of the director, each doing whatever they want for the allotted time. Subjects of the film include directors Barbet Schroeder, Nagisa Oshima, Volker Schlöndorff, Ken Loach, Benjamin Cuq, Youssef Chahine, Wim Wenders, Joseph Losey, Jean-Luc Godard, Samuel Fuller and Terry Gilliam, chess grandmaster Joël Lautier, and actors Roberto Benigni, Stéphane Audran, Julie Delpy and Lesley Chatterley. Gilliam is featured eating a 100-franc note, while Fuller smokes a cigar. Courant's favourite subject was a 7-month-old baby. The film was screened in its then-entirety in Avignon in November 2009 and was screened in Redondo Beach, CA on April 9, 2010.

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Louis and Lénore have sought refuge in a lonely house by the sea. As in a dream, zombies appear, wandering at nightfall. Do they really exist?

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In the middle of the night, Magloire is smoking a cigarette in an abandoned train station when the police shows up for an ID check. He starts running with no luggage, no future until he meets a dying man from whom he inherits a fortune. Magloire is now pursued by a gang. He becomes their hostage, but accomplice too. As he doesn’t anything to lose. Like someone who gets away with everything, someone with no expectations…

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The film opens on a water-skiing accident - a girl (Délie) drives a speedboat and pulls a young man (Stan). They are both challenging their own limits when a crash occurs... Stan wakes up from a coma after this serious accident, to find out that genealogists are looking for an individual whose identity corresponds to his. Instead of asking himself questions about this testamentary filiation, he subscribes for Professor Starkov's legacy, and embarks for the country of Las Estrellas... Purging odyssey where intuition and telepathy accelerates the journey in time. Dharma Guns revisits the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice fighting with the tyranny of Time-God...

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Angstel trades in forged paintings, under the guidance of his mother, Milady. Their network extends into other murky affairs, provoking the wrath of a rival gang. Angstel falls in love with Ancetta, a prostitute, and flees with her to the north of Chile. - IFFR

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The world after the atomic age. An engineer disappears, together with his consortium (Kryo'Corp) and his discovery: a new energy source powered by the fusion of two primary substances. Ulysses, Kryo'Corp's heir, organises an expedition to the only place these substances occur.

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The story about gladiators against a German background. One of them, Ettore, has become a star of the underworld. He ends up breaking down, caught in a role he can no longer fulfill. His last betrayal is to spill the beans to the press. –São Paulo International Film Festival

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La Zone - the poor, dangerous quarters of Paris (George Lacombe, 1928); the administrative zone where Orpheus looks for his lost Eurydice (Jean Cocteau, 1950); Interzone - the working title for Naked Lunch (W.S. Burroughs, 1959). In 1983, Ossang created a synthesis of all these territories of unrest under a banner of dead colours. - IFFR

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In-between essay and fiction, La dernière énigme established Ossang's formal territory: a contemporary mythology. Inspired by the book On Terrorism and the State by Gianfranco Sanguinetti, it evokes visual echoes of political events, where a generation forfeits all revolutionary aspirations due to state terrorism. Shot using two cans of Kodak XX 16mm film. - IFFR

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