Franco-Moroccan filmmaker Sofia Alaoui (behind the brilliant Sundance Grand Prize-winning short So What If the Goats Die (2020) and the equally mystical supernatural bowl of soup feature in 2023’s Animalia) is among the half dozen invited guests to the Résidence of the Festival de Cannes — essentially the festival sets up burgeoning filmmakers to set up shop at an apartment building in Paris to workshop their latest projects with industry folk.
Other invited folks bunking in the Paris staycay incvlude Australian filmmaker (based in Berlin) Rudolf Fitzgerald-Leonard (who had his short shown in the Directors’ Fortnight), Colombian filmmaker Theo Montoya of Anhell69 fame, Lithuanian filmmaker Eglė Razumaitė whose last short (Ootidé) was in the running for the short film Palme d’Or, India’s Diwa Shah (she had her feature debut at the 2023 San Sebastian Intl. Film Festival) and finally Anastasia Veber, her last short won the Golden Bear at the Berlinale.
Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist, and critic at IONCINEMA.com, established in 2000. A regular at Sundance, Cannes, and Venice, Eric holds a BFA in film studies from the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013, he served on the narrative competition jury at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson’s "This Teacher" (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). He is a Golden Globes Voter, member of the ICS (International Cinephile Society), FIPRESCI and AQCC (Association québécoise des critiques de cinéma).
Iconic director Ken Russell was in town to receive a lifetime achievement award from Fantasia for his 50-plus years in the business, a career that has spawned many genre classics including Altered States, Gothic, and The Lair of the White Worm. But it was the little-seen and hard to find The Devils from 1971 that proved to be Russell's most controversial work, and Fantasia managed to snag a copy to be screened on Russell's big night. In the video, Russell discusses the true story behind the film and receives his award with the grace befitting one of the great filmmakers of all time.
