10/01/2006

As the rumours suggested, Camping sauvage (Savage camping), the second feature from the French directing duo Christophe Ali and Nicolas Bonilauri will participate in the 21st Panorama of the 56th Berlin film festival (9 - 19 February 2006). Interpreted by Denis Lavant, Isild Le Besco, Pascal Bongard, Yann Trégouët, Raphaël Mezrahi and the filmmaker Emmanuelle Bercot, the film has already been screened at the Montreal festival (end of August – beginning of September 2005) and at St-Jean de Luz on the 12th of October. Retracing an exalted and passionate love story between a man of 40 and a young girl of 17, the story unfolds in a camp-site at the beginning of August. On holiday, Camille (Isild Le Besco) is bored as she hangs around waiting for Fred, her boyfriend, who works at the bar. And so she meets Blaise (Denis Lavant), a sailing instructor whose personality is similar to hers despite the age difference. This complicity between them, laced with a sort of hatred for life, is soon the subject of rumours, and Fred becomes jealous, as does Blaise’s wife who arrives at the camp-site, demanding explanations. But the lovers determine to go all out to continue this intense affair until the end of the summer, planning to kill themselves.

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From the world of experimental video, Christophe Ali and Nicolas Bonilauri made many short films between 1994 and 1998 before launching into features in 2001 with The Rat, an hallucinatory adaptation, heavily inspired by David Lynch, of the novel by Andreï Zanievsky. Their producer at the time, Tom Dercourt of the company Les Films à Un Dollar, is involved once more in Camping sauvage which received 76 000 euros of post-production Advance on Receipts and 10 000 euros of aid for the soundtrack from the National Film Centre (CNC). The film will be released on French screens on the 15th of March, distributed by Shellac.

(Translated from French)