Festivals - FCAD 2020 : Discover the films presented in the section Uncle Sam's Docs

By Mulder, 22 august 2020

Billie (USA)
Directed by James Erskine
Starring Billie Holiday
Music by Hans Mullens
Distributed by L’Atelier de Distribution
Release date : September 30 2020 (France)
Running time : 97mns
Synopsis: Billie Holiday is one of the greatest voices of all time. She was the first icon of the protest against racism, which earned her powerful enemies. In the late 1960s, journalist Linda Lipnack Kuehl began an official biography of the artist. She collected more than 200 hours of recorded testimonies, including those of Charles Mingus, Tony Bennett and Count Basie, as well as those of her lovers, lawyers, pimps and even FBI agents who arrested her. But the biographical book was never completed and the tapes have remained unpublished ... until now.

Deauville et le rêve américain (France)
Directed by Daphné Baiwir
Produced by Sebastien Cruz
Starring Michael Douglas, Claude Lelouch, Stéphane Brizé, Christine Vachon, Debra Granik, Gilles Jacob, Ira Sachs, Jim Cummings…
Running time : 75mns
Synopsis : Reflection of society and vector of Western culture, American cinema has been spreading around the world since its beginnings. For more than 45 years, the Deauville Festival has been the main window in Europe on American cinema, its greatest directors, actresses and actors having trodden the famous Normandy stage. This documentary retraces the history of the festival and gives an overview of independent American cinema through the testimonies of some twenty personalities of French and American cinema.

Kirk Douglas, the Untameable (France)
Directed by Hubert Attal
Running time : 53mns
Synopsis : Born in 1916 into a poor family who fled Russian anti-Semitism, Kirk Douglas, whose real name is Issur Danielovitch, made his cinematic debut in the 1940s, notably in Jacques Tourneur's La Griffe du passé. In the 1950s, he was at the height of his fame, playing a series of outstanding roles, such as in Vincent van Gogh's The Captive with Clear Eyes and The Passionate Life. Committed, he produced difficult films such as Les Sentiers de la gloire and Spartacus. To paint a portrait of this Hollywood legend, the author of this documentary went to meet his family and fans.

Kubrick by Kubrick (France & USA)
Directed by Gregory Monro
Produced by Martin Laurent, Jeremy Zelnik
Starring Stanley Kubrick ; Michel Ciment ; Malcolm McDowell ; Jack Nicholson
Music by Vincent Théard
Cinematography : Radek Ladczuk
Edited by Philippe Baillon
Running time : 73mns
Synopsis : Stanley Kubrick is one of the greatest directors in the history of cinema. His masterpieces are studied by students and experts from all over the world, all looking for the answers that the filmmaker was so reluctant to give. Although his films are the most subject to analysis and theory, Kubrick's own words are extremely rare. Thanks to film critic Michel Ciment, a leading expert on the director, a series of unique interviews were recorded during their 30-year relationship. Combined with the archives of Kubrick's family, this film thus paints an intimate portrait of the filmmaker.

Leap of Faith : William Friedkin on the Exorcist (USA)
Written and Directed by Alexandre O. Philippe
Produced by Kerry Deignan Roy, Chad Herschberger, Annick Mahnert, Robert Muratore
Starring William Friedkin
Music by Jon Hegel, Anthony Weeden
Cinematography : Robert Muratore
Edited by David Lawrence
Release date : September 4 , 2019 (Italy)
Running time : 105mns
Synopsis: Both lyrical and spiritual, this documentary on The Exorcist plunges us into the unexplored depths of William Friedkin's mental representation, but also into the mysteries of filmmaking and the mysteries of faith and destiny that shaped the filmmaker's life and work.

Pierre & Lescure (France)
Directed by Maxime Switek & Philippe Lézin
Running time : 59mns
Synopsis: Everyone knows Lescure. The co-founder of Canal +, the president of the Cannes Film Festival, the journalist, the creator of "Les Enfants du rock", the boss of Universal Studios in Los Angeles... But few people know Pierre. The scout leader, his communist parents, the bulimic of American culture, the lover of Audrey Hepburn, the collector, the ganderer, the gambler, the curious of everything... Pierre is always on the lookout for the latest trends. Lescure is always on the lookout for what will make journalism, television and cinema in five or ten years.

The Last Hillbilly (France, Qatar, USA)
Written and Directed by Diane Sara Bouzgarrou & Thomas Jenkoe
Music by Jay Gambitt
Cinematography : Thomas Jenkoe
Edited by Pierre Amand
Production companies : Film de Force Majeure
Distributed by New Story (France)
Release date : December 2020 (France)
Running time : 80mns
Synopsis: Talcum, in eastern Kentucky, is a rural and remote area of the United States where people feel less American than Appalachian. Brian Ritchie and his family have lived there for decades. But the mines have closed and nothing has replaced them. Over time, the residents have faced an explosive mix of economic decline, ecological disaster, and social violence. In the United States, they are often referred to as "hillbillies. Caught between a mythical past and an indistinguishable future, Brian Ritchie is one of the last witnesses of a world that is dying out, and of which he is the poet.

Weed and Wine (USA)
Directed by Rebecca Richman Cohen
Produced byRebecca Richman Cohen
Written by David Feige, Jay Arthur Sterrenberg
Starring Kevin Jodrey, Nocona Jodrey, Hélène Thibon, Aurélien Thibon-Macagno
Music by Max Avery Lichtenstein
Cinematography : Eric Phillips-Horst
Edited by Nathaniel Hansen
Running time : 89mns
Synopsis: Two farming families are trying to reinvent themselves. In the Ardèche, a woman volunteer perpetuates the family tradition with her son by running a century-old vineyard using biodynamic methods. On the other side of the ocean, in Humboldt County, California, an impetuous father and his introverted son carefully run an organic farm that legally produces cannabis. This documentary intertwines their stories, both similar and different, and highlights the contradictions that exist between the French winemaking tradition and the emerging cannabis culture in the United States.

(Source : press release)