Interviews

Interview: Nicolas Champeaux & Gilles Porte – The State Against Mandela And The Others | 2018 Cannes Film Festival

Published on July 10, 2018

French-based docu filmmaker Gilles Porte (When the Sea Rises) teams with journalist Nicolas Champeaux to examine the landmark Rivonia Trial of 1963-64 in The State Against Mandela and the Others. An absorbing, poignant immersion think piece that posits viewers in an the court system, Porte & Champeaux detail the lives of the nine men tried alongside Nelson Mandela for their apparently illegal activities against the apartheid state via an artful fusion of archive audio and atmospheric interpretive animation. I had the chance to sit with the pair while at the Cannes Film Festival (Special Screenings section) to find out more about their collaboration, inspiration, reflections on trial itself, and their working strategy.

Amir Ganjavie

Amir Ganjavie, a Ph.D. in communication and culture, is a Toronto-based writer, cultural citric, festival director, community activist and filmmaker. Fascinated by the issue of alternative and utopian space in modern urban settings and cinema, Amir has published several articles on utopia and two books, one on utopia (Le rÃ´le de la pensÃ©e utopique dans lâamÃ©nagement des villes de demain) and the other on walkable neighbourhoods (Pour une ville qui marche). He has recently co-edited two special volumes on Iranian cinema for film International and Asian Cinema and edited a Humanities of the Other: An essay collection on the Dardanne Brothers (in Persian). Aside from academia, he writes for MovieMaker, Filmint, Mubi, Senses of Cinema, Offscreen and Brightlight. Amir is very active in the community. He serves as the CEO of CineIran Festival and Phoenix Cultural Centre of Toronto. He is also the founding member of NaMaNa Cinema. He has recently directed/produced a long feature film in Canada, named Pendulum. His top 2 theatrical release for 2017: IldikÃ³ Enyedi's On Body and Soul and Michel Hazanavicius's Redoubtable.