Selection for PriMed 2016 : Mediterranean Issues category

The following is the selection for PriMed 2016 in the Mediterranean Issues category :

– AUBE DORÉE, UNE AFFAIRE PERSONNELLE by Angélique KOUROUNIS

– DAESH, PAROLES DE DÉSERTEURS by Thomas DANDOIS and François-Xavier TREGAN

– LA GRANJA DEL PAS by Silvia MUNT

– NAPOLISLAM by Ernesto PAGANO

PriMed is the International Festival of Mediterranean Documentary and Reportage. Its 20th edition will take place from November 20th to 26th in Marseille.
www.primed.tv

AUBE DOREE, UNE AFFAIRE PERSONNELLE
90 minutes, 2015
Director: Angélique KOUROUNIS (France, Greece)
Production: OmniaTV (Greece), Arte (France, Germany), Yemaya Productions (France)

“My man is a Jew, one of my sons gay, another an anarchist and me a left-wing feminist, daughter of an immigrant. If Golden Dawn comes to power, our only problem will be which carriage we get into.”
Over a period of years the journalist/director has investigated Golden Dawn, the Greek neo-Nazi party. In this film she approaches the issue through her own obsessions, worries and fears. She has spent many years researching all aspects of the party, still ranked third on the Greek political scene, despite decades of murderous actions.

Angélique KOUROUNIS
Angélique KOUROUNIS is a journalist, author and director.
Since 1985 she has covered Greece and the Balkans on a regular, often daily basis for the written press (including, Charlie Hebdo, La Libre Belgique, Politis and Ouest France), radio (France Info, France Culture, France Inter, Radio Canada, RTBF Radio Télévision Belge Francophone, Radio Suisse Romande), and television (LCI, CBC, RTSR, RTBF, Public Sénat, TV5 Monde).
Among her most recent reports: “Attrape-moi si tu peux”, “Va te faire sauter chez les Grecs”, “Les mutants de l’atome” and “La Route des Roms”.

DAESH, PAROLES DE DESERTEURS
52 minutes, 2016
Directors : Thomas DANDOIS (France, UK) et François-Xavier TREGAN (France)
Production : Memento (France), Arte (France, Germany)

In south eastern Turkey, a few kilometres from the border with war-torn Syria, a clandestine network courageously smuggles out ISIS fighters who have decided to quit. For the first time deserters agree to talk about their life subjugated to the Islamic State. Mostly they come from Raqqa, the terrorist group’s political and military capital. These testimonies are very rare since most ISIS defectors hide and never speak to the press. If they surrender to their countries’ authorities they are imprisoned and can only communicate with their lawyers or families. The escape network is organised by members of the Free Syrian Army, and they agreed to demonstrate some of their working methods. By helping defectors escape they hope to expose the lies of ISIS, its cult of violence and its corruption. They are convinced this will deter future candidates for jihad and dry up the valuable recruitment channels.

Thomas DANDOIS and François-Xavier TREGAN
Thomas DANDOIS is a director, reporter and “journaliste reporter d’images”, graduate of the Institut Pratique de Journalisme in Paris. Franco-British, he has made documentaries around the world. His filmography contains about thirty films, including “Aung San Suu Kyi, la liberté en héritage” (2013), shown on France 5, “Mogadiscio, capitale fantôme”, shown in 2011 on Arte, and more than 15 26-minute features for Arte Reportage including “Tunisie, sur le chemin de la démocratie” which won the FIGRA Best Reportage Award in 2012. Also a writer, Thomas has published “En territoire interdit” and several articles, in particular for the prestigious French magazine XXI.
François-Xavier TREGAN is a reporter and director. Having graduated as a historian, he studied at the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales de Paris. He lived in Damascus from 1992 to 1998. Special correspondent in the Yemen for Le Monde from 2011 to 2015, François-Xavier also produces the radio documentary programme Sur les Docks on France Culture. He collaborates with many media such as XXI, L’Express, L’Obs, GEO, Radio Canada, etc. Among his latest films broadcast on Arte: “Roméo et Juliette, un amour de guerre”, shown in 2015, and “Au Yémen, dans les couloirs de la mort” shown in 2014.

LA GRANJA DEL PAS
82 minutes, 2015
Director: Silvia MUNT (Spain)
Production : Intent Produccions (Spain), Corporació Catalana de Mitjans Audiovisuals (Spain)

Granja del Pas is the building which houses the Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (PAH) – an advice centre for people unable to repay their mortgage – in Sabadell, a town in north-eastern Spain.The documentary shows how it operates and the stories of those who work there.The instability created by the current economic recession affects people’s daily lives. The documentary shows us the deep contradictions in a society which has hit hard times, its need to rethink the future and its intense desire for freedom.

Silvia MUNT
Silvia MUNT is an actress, a stage and film director. She has acted in more than fifty films and received the Goya Award for her role in “Alas de Mariposa” (1991).In 1998 she began to make films, among them “Pretextos” (2008) and the documentary “Elena Dimitrievna Dianokova Gala” (2003). She won a second Goya Award for “Laila” (1999), her first short documentary. She has written and directed a dozen films for television.

NAPOLISLAM
75 minutes, 2015
Director: Ernesto PAGANO (Italy)
Production : Ladoc (Italy), Isola Film (Italy)

One day Naples wakes up and discovers it has become Islamic. A camera wanders through the city before getting under the skin of ten people who have converted to Islam: an unemployed person, a girl in love, a rapper, a father. A random mix of people, but for each the Koran provides an answer to social injustice, unbridled consumption and a world without hope. But the religion they have chosen is not only a faith, it is a system of rules, with roots in a distant culture. How can one reconcile it with one’s own culture? Between halal pastries and prayers in the street, their daily story sheds new light, alternately amused and bitter, on both Naples and our society.

Ernesto PAGANO
Ernesto PAGANO was born in 1981. He studied Islam at the Università degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale”.
He is a journalist, Arabic translator and documentary film-maker.
He lived for three years in Cairo working as correspondent for Italian magazines and newspapers, and as an Arabic translator. While there he made a short film about Cairo taxi-drivers called “Cairo Taxi Drivers” (2009), as well as two documentaries: “Nasser mon Amour” (2011) and “Lontano da Tahrir” (2012).
Since his return to Italy he has worked on “Report”, a Rai Tre programme, and conducted investigations for Arte, the National Geographic Channel and La7.

Back to the selection

Mediterranean Memory category

Mediterranean Art, heritage and Cultures category

First Film category

Mediterranean Multimedia category