Laëtitia Moreau sur le tournage du Challenge en Equateur

Dans ce bref entretien réalisé pour le dossier de presse du Challenge, Laëtitia Moreau revient sur ces motivations à s’engager dans un projet de web-documentaire, en complément de son documentaire pour la télévision.

Pourquoi un web-documentaire ?

En tant que réalisatrice de documentaire, l’idée de réaliser un web documentaire m’a tout de suite séduite car il y a toujours des parties de l’enquête de préparation du documentaire que l’on doit sacrifier à l’heure d’écrire son synopsis et de tourner pour la télévision. Ce support me permet donc de développer un point important, le scandale de la Texaco, et d’apporter un complément d’information au documentaire qui passera sur Canal+.

Je l’ai pensé comme un documentaire à part entière et non comme une version un peu modifiée du film réalisé pour la télévision. L’écriture du synopsis a été un exercice nouveau et créatif.  Un exercice de mise en scène d’un travail qui normalement ne se voit pas dans les documentaires que je réalise : celui de l’enquête journalistique. Une mise en scène possible par l’utilisation de tous les supports du web (photos, texte, musique, vidéo et lien interactif) mais dans le cadre d’une contrainte forte : le respect de la réalité des faits et des propos.

Qu’est-ce que le web peut apporter au projet ?

Il y avait de la part des personnes filmées en Equateur comme une frustration que la diffusion soit uniquement en France. C’est un sujet global qui mérite une diffusion globale ce que nous offre évidemment le web documentaire.

Un vision engagée ?

J’aimerais évidemment qu’il connaisse la diffusion la plus large possible pour faire connaître les enjeux qui traversent l’Amazonie équatorienne. Sur ce sujet spécifique, le web permet à l’internaute de prendre conscience et position sur un sujet qui a priori est éloigné de lui. Cet aspect « citoyen du monde » est aussi très motivant  dans ce projet.

En savoir plus sur le challenge : le procès du pétrole en Amazonie

Voir le webdoc sur canalplus.fr

Lire l’entretien avec Samuel Gontier sur Telerama.fr

At Honkytonk, we have always liked to get our hands on new creative and productive tools. For me, it all started a couple years ago with cubase, photoshop, finalcut, Indesign, flash and so on. I also remember a quiet recent time when I would spend hours testing new software / engines for building websites (wordpress, joomla, drupal…), managing and creating communities (myspace, secondlife, facebook, ning, twitter…), hosting videos (daily, youtube, videoegg – remember ?, vimeo…).

Yet nothing about interactive storytelling (I mean using Keynote to build Journey to the End of Coal narrative was fun but, well… not a thrill).

So here we are with Klynt, a software in between Clint Eastwood and Klimt, Final Cut and the world wide web. A flash application we have been dreaming from the start to create interactive storytelling.

Now, we are anxious to tell you more. We certainly will. There is nothing more than telling a long story short they say.

Arnaud
@ArnaudDressen @HonkytonkFilms

The Big Issue, Samuel Bollendorff’s new web documentary on the obesity epidemic was released this week on French Educational website curiosphere.tv (France 5).

Coming up, we will be presenting this new project at the following locations:

- in Berlin for PRIX EUROPA, a pan-european competition for emerging media on October 23rd

- at Sheffield Doc/Fest, UK’s cutting edge documentary festival on 4-8 November (official competition for “innovation awards”)

- at European Days, Torino’s based co-production forum on 12 November

- at Parisian new media Festival des 4 Ecrans on 18-20 November (official competition in the “web films” category)

- at The International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), on 20th November (Doclab selection)

Presentation
As the global urban population expands at a rate of 3 million people per week, we have reached a critical moment in human history when, for the first time, more than half the world!s people live in cities.

Boomtown Babylon is a 30-minute interactive web documentary that offers a participatory journey through the most acute extremes of the global urbanization phenomenon, inviting the viewer to embark on a compelling ride from the slums and pavements of the poorest neighbourhoods, to the private mansions of the very wealthy, in five of the world’s most divided cities. The segments will be produced by a collective of local film-makers in each city, who will collaborate via an online playtform during the 6-month production phase.

About the creative team
Lotje Sodderland, associate producer
Director and documentary producer, Lotje has previously worked on environmental documentaries in association with BBC World and Channel 4, and alongside UK-based director Robert Lamb.

She currently works as web editor for Dutch online broadcaster SubmarineChannel and regularly produces contemporary art exhibitions in Amsterdam, Barcelona and New York for Maxalot Gallery, which she co-founded in 2003.

Matthieu Saura (Vincent Moon), creative director
Co-creator of the Take Away shows (aka Les concerts à emporter), Vincent Moon is well-known for exploring new documentary formats. He directed a movie-essay on New York band The National, ‘A skin, A night’, released in May 2008, toured with The Arcade Fire and worked closely with Michael Stipe and REM on several video and web projects related to their 2008 album : the 48minutes essay ‘SIX DAYS’, experimental documentary on the recording of ‘Accelerate’, the experimental ninety-days-long web project ‘90nights’, and the web music video ‘Supernatural Superserious’.

Credits

Now online on http://lechallenge.canalplus.fr (french version)

Presentation
From the heart of the international campaign, impassioned individuals at the centre of a thrilling political battle for our planet.

The Challenge is an environmental global media adventure. It is combination of two films made for two mediums which complement one another showing different aspects of the same story, while describing the same initiative.

- a web documentary project produced in the style of «choose your own adventure books». Inviting Internet users to take on the role of an independent journalist who sets off for the Amazon in search of information and witnesses on the ecological disaster provoked by the American oil company Texaco.

- a Television documentary (HD, 52’) that follows the struggle of an Ecuadorian manufacturer and a diplomat who are ready to give up the petrol found on their lands, in order to protect biodiversity.
A political thriller, and a film with a simple intrigue : « Will they succeed in convincing rich countries to help them? »
They only have a few months to convince the international community and their governments. Through this story we accompany people facing the difficult choice between preserving the biodiversity and short term petrodollars. How would we react facing such a radical dilemma?

Credits

// FRENCH SYNOPSIS
Le Challenge, Le procès environnemental du siècle
En Equateur, la compagnie pétrolière américaine Texaco fait face depuis les années 90 à un procès sans précédent. Après avoir déversé l’équivalent de 30 pétroliers dans la forêt Amazonienne, ce géant de l’or noir doit répondre aux accusations portées par plusieurs milliers d’indigènes et colons Equatoriens. Ils réclament plus de 16 milliards de dollars de réparation.

Quelles sont leurs chances de gagner ? Le Challenge propose de faire le point sur l’une des plus grandes tragédies écologiques du siècle.

A voir sur  http://lechallenge.canalplus.fr

This week, we will be presenting two projects at Sunny Side of the Doc, the documentary market which is held in La Rochelle.

First of, we will be presenting a first rough cut of THE BIG ISSUE, our new web documentary on the obesity epidemic including :

- a special photo exhibition in front of the conference venue
- a presentation on Wednesday 24 June 2009 at 10:30 am and 6:30 am in Agora

Then, our new project on the Yasuni initiative, which is still in development for Canal +, will be pitched at Sunny Side BIPS environmental session on Wednesday at 11:30 am.

more information on the agenda here.

We are delighted to announce Journey to the End of Coal just received an award for best interactive program by the French Author Guild (la Scam).

More information here on the full list of projects and winners.

This summer, we will be in Paris launching a new multimedia training program in partnership with the Centre Européen de Formation à la Production de Films (CEFPF).

A 5-week program dedicated to experienced filmmakers and journalists willing to explore new story-telling formats and learn about the latest technology.

More information here.

>> ACCESS THE ONLINE SCREENER

>> DOWNLOAD SHORT PRESENTATION
>> DOWNLOAD PRESS KIT(FRENCH)
Special screenings & conferences:
> IDFA Doclab, Amsterdam – November, 2008
> Cinema du Réel, Paris – March 10, 2009
> South by Southwest, Austin TX – March 19, 2009
> Atelier nouveaux médias de la cité internationale de Liège, Belgium, March 31, 2009
> Festival Visions du Réel, Nyon, Switzerland – April 27, 2009
> International Book Film Bridge, Torino, Italy – May 16, 2009
> Pocket Films Festival, Paris, France – June 12, 2009
> Sunny Side of The Doc, La Rochelle, France – June 24, 2009
> Festival des 4 Ecrans, Paris, France – October 23, 2009
> Sheffield Doc/Fest, Sheffield, UK – November 4, 2009

In partnership with Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders

Synopsis

Journey To The End Of Coal tells you the story of a sacrifice. A sacrifice millions of Chinese coal miners are making everyday, risking their lives and spoiling their land to satisfy their own country’s appetite for economic growth.

Your journey begins in Datong which is located just a couple hours away West from Beijing. You travel from there all around the region and visit its major coal mines, from the “best” state-owned complex to the worst private coal plants.

In and around the coal mines, you get the story first hand from the mingong, the rural migrants traveling their country looking for work.

At your own pace and will, you meet them and learn more about how they live in this valley of death and pollution, sometimes even literally bumping into them as they leave their home for their night shift, in the frozen winter of Northern China.

Ultimately, you might discover China forbidden mines in which happen most of the accidents.

–

Based on the interactive story telling format “FIRST PERSONS”, conceived by Abel Ségrétin, Grégoire Basdevant and Arnaud Dressen.

Producer : Arnaud Dressen
Directors: Samuel Bollendorff and Abel Ségrétin
Co-Author: Grégoire Basdevant
Sound design: Frederic Blin
Development: 31Septembre / Guillaume Urjewicz / Remi Toffoli
With the support from CNC multimédia and SCAM.

First released on French news portal lemonde.fr with more than 1.5 million page views.

Une expérience interactive réalisée par Lionel Brouet.

A propos du réalisateur
Lionel Brouet est réalisateur de films documentaires musicaux (“8-Bit Generation”, “Festival in the Desert”, “Lojo”, “Tambours Sacrés” …) et collabore régulièrement en tant que journaliste et réalisateur avec les chaînes Canal+, Arte et Virgin 17.

Depuis plusieurs années, il développe et réalise des programmes courts pour le web et la téléphonie
mobile. Il a ainsi couvert pour le compte d’Orange et SFR la plupart des festivals rock en France.

Dernièrement, son court-métrage documentaire “Amuse-bouche” a été sélectionné au Festival International du film de Berlin.

Credits

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