Pune International Film Festival 2014 Global Cinema section
St. Petersburg International Festival of Debut and Students Films Beginning 2013 Special screening
T-Mobile New Horizons International Film Festival - 2013 Official Selection Wroclaw - Poland
Moscow International Film Festival 2013 Media Forum
International Film Festival Rotterdam - 2013 "Bright Future" Category
Lightning (Foudre) A legend in four seasons
A film by Manuela Morgaine
Genre : Documentary on legendary form Runtime : 3h50 Production year : 2013
Synopsis
This panorama is a filmic zigzag that forks out like a bolt of lightning. Its subject straddles several countries and centuries simultaneously. Its form is somewhere between documentary and legend.
Autumn follows a lightning hunter, associated with Baal, Syrian God of Lightning. A visionary, Baal screens 25 years of video archives of lightning and gives us the scientific key to unlocking this fabulous and devastating phenomenon. Five of the lightning-struck reenact their ordeals at the very locations where they were struck, places to which most had never before returned. The voice of Baal is interpreted by singer and guitarist Rudolphe Burger.
Winter strives to analyze melancholy, the final stage of depression, and the ways in which it can be overcome. A psychiatrist personifies Saturn, the god and dark planet. He travels to Africa and Syria to find both his own roots and the source of certain ancestral practices: a ritual performed by women deep in Guinea Bissau, spinning dervishes, and a torpedo fish which, in the ancient city of Aleppo, held the secret to wellness. At the same time, five melancholic patients, seen in slow-motion in the places that represent their existential angst, describe their long and unique journeys back to themselves and the light.
Spring resuscitates Symeon the Stylite, a god maniac who lived atop a column for 40 years. Symeon was struck dead by a bolt of lightning in the desert of Cham near Palmyra, Syria. But he also digs for lost artifacts. He tells the true story of Aleppo soap and its cauldron filled with myths. He tells how, every spring, lightning engenders an aphrodisiac truffle called Kama which goes by the name of “Allah’s vegetable” in The Arabian Nights.
Summer, based on the text of Marivaux’s DISPUTE, stages the earth-shattering meeting between two intense creatures, Azor and Eglé, who are stranded on the island of Sutra. On this island paradise, they eat Kama, the forbidden fruit and, though madly in love, are expelled. They are studied like atomic lab mice from the time they first see light in the 18th century to today when they are plunged into darkness.
The branches Baal, Saturn, Symeon, the Melancholics and the Lightning-struck are finally united and join the battle-weary lovers at the nocturnal lightning ball.
Trailer
Cast Baal, Lightning Hunter : Rodolphe Burger Saturne The Psychiatrist : William de Carvalho Syméon The Stylite : Michael Jasmin Eglé : Margot Crespon Azor : Maxime Nourrissat Nevil The Merchant Marine : Frank Smith
The Lightning struck Samy Haffaf Albert Rochette Richard Arbez Roland Bardel dit Roulette Florence Lancial
The Melancholics The Insane Man : Kamel Agee Death and the Maiden : Margot Crespon The Madonna of the Sharks : Laurence Mailler The Floating Woman : Nathalie Jailler The Nostalgic Man The Grand Horned Owl : Brice Thévenot
With a special appearance by Jean-Pierre Luminet (astrophysicist)
Production Mathieu Bompoint - Mezzanine Films Manuela Morgaine - Envers Compagnie
Credits Screenwriter : Manuela Morgaine Director : Manuela Morgaine Music composers : Philippe Langlois , Emmanuel Hosseyn During Additional music : Ludwig von Beethoven, Giuseppe Verdi, Fréderic Chopin, Joseph Haydn, Antonio Vivaldi Directors of photography : Manuela Morgaine, Pauline Lormant, Giovanni Laniado, Hervé Labourdette Footage of The Lightning Hunt : Alex Hermant Assistant director : Marianne Nicole Sound recordists : Giovanni Laniado, Fabien Paviot Costums : Agnès Noden Makeup : Emilie Dupérier Editors : Gordana Othnin-Girard, Pauline Lormant Sound editor : Colette Constantini Sound mixer : Gilles Benardeau Color grading : Jean-Baptiste Pouilloux, Christophe Bousquet Special effects : Matthieu Serrière Film restauration and Re-mastering : Blaise Othnin-Girard Line producer : Mathieu Bompoint - Mezzanine Films Executive producer : Manuela Morgaine - Envers Compagnie Production managers : Edyta Janczak-Hiriart, Marianne Nicole Production coordinators : Luc Barrau, Florent Lapeyre, Corinne Borrot Production administrators : Pascale Meneur, Séverine Barré, Juliette Bompoint, Julian Monfort
Technical details Genre : Documentary Sub-genre : Legend Production language : French Nationality : French (100%) Production year : 2013 Runtime : 3h50 Color type : Color Production formats : HDV / SD / HD Screening formats : DCP / DVD Aspect ratio : 4/3 & 16/9 Sound format : 5.1
