01/04/2009

As of today, Orly airport is hosting the shoot of German director Angela Schanelec’s sixth feature (after Afternoon in 2007), entitled Orly, Poem 1-4. Filming will last until the end of the month.

The director – who is also an actress, screenwriter, producer and occasional editor – is a member of the movement known as the Berlin School and the "New German Wave", has won two German Film Critics’ Awards and is a regular at major festivals including Berlin and Cannes (in 1998 and 2004). This is not the first time she has worked in France: she shot Marseille there in 2004, with a German cast.

Orly, Poem 1-4 stars French actors Natacha Régnier and Bruno Todeschini. Written by Schanelec, the film retraces two hours in the life of the airport and centres on four characters who are waiting for their respective flights in the same terminal, against a backdrop of imminent disaster.

The cast also includes young actor Emile Berling and Belgium’s Josse de Pauw.

Orly, Poem 1-4 is a 60% German production, helmed by the director’s company Nachmittagfilm and Ringel Produktion. Co-produced by France’s La vie est belle Films (40% investment), the film received €225,500 in backing as part of the Franco-German co-production mini-treaty.

Schanelec also directed the opening short for the collective film Germany 09 [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which was released in German theatres last Thursday.

(Translated from French)