Earlier today, Cineuropa’s Fabien Lemercier revealed an alluring-sounding project that we’ll be keeping a close eye on. Heading into production this week, Armenia-born, Lebanese documentary filmmaker Tamara Stepanyan has lassoed Camille Cottin and Zar Amir Ebrahimi for a complex, perhaps investigative portrait about the deception and lies from the deceased with hints of what we might have found in Amjad Al Rasheed’s Inshallah a Boy. Supporting players on Sauver Les Morts include Hovnatan Avédikian and Denis Lavant but the kicker here is that this is cinematographer Claire Mathon’s next project. La Huit Production’s Stéphane Jourdain will produce – with production lasting almost two months. The production will take place almost exclusively in Armenia.
Written by Stepanyan, Jean-Christophe Ferrari, Jean Breschand, Jihane Chouaib and Romy Coccia di Ferro, this revolves around Céline (Cottin), who comes to Armenia for the first time in order to straighten things out after the death of Arto, her husband. She discovers that he had been lying to her, that he went to war, that he used a fraudulent identity, and that his old friends have accused him of being a deserter. She is a woman is chasing after a ghost. How can she bury him? Can we save the dead?