Highlighting filmmakers who show independence of spirit, originality and talent, the 71st Prix Jean Vigo went to Dominique Marchais for La Rivière. This marks the third time in the history of the award that a filmmaker wins with a feature-length documentary, after Frédéric Rossif in 1963 with Mourir à Madrid and Jérôme Laperrousaz in 1972 with Continental Circus. Dominique Marchais joins other winners including Jean-Luc Godard, Maurice Pialat, Alain Resnais, Claude Chabrol, Philippe Garrel, Bruno Dumont, Olivier Assayas, Noémie Lvovsky, Patricia Mazuy, Katell Quillévéré, Laurent Cantet, Xavier Beauvois, Alain Guiraudie, Mathieu Amalric and Alice Diop.

Produced by Mélanie Gérin and Paul Rozenberg for Zadig Films, La rivière is the 4th feature-length documentary by Dominique Marchais after Le Temps des grâces (discovered in Locarno in 2009), La ligne de partage des eaux (2014) and No Man Is an Island [+lee también:
tráiler
ficha de la película] (winner at Entrevues-Belfort in 2017). Unveiled at the La Rochelle Cinema Festival (Fema), the film centres on the powerful rivers running between the Pyrenees and the Atlantic. Corn fields dry them, dams block the movements of salmon. Human activity disturbs the water cycle and the river’s biodiversity. Men and women cast a curious and loving eye towards this fascinating world made of beauty and disaster… La rivière will be released in French cinemas on 22 November by Météore Films (who is also handling the film’s international sales).

It is worth nothing that an Honorary Prix Vigo went this year to Claire Simon (whose latest documentary, Our Body [+lee también:
crítica
tráiler
ficha de la película], was well received in Berlin and has been playing in French cinemas since 4 October) and that this edition also pays tribute to the late Sophie Fillières, who passed away this summer, soon after she completed filming on Ma vie ma gueule [+lee también:
crítica
ficha de la película].