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WILD
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Director:
Sébastien Lifshitz
Screenplay:
Stéphane Bouquet
Sébastien Lifshitz
Cast:
Stéphanie: Stéphanie Michelini
Mikhail: Edouard Nikitine
Jamel: Yasmine Belmadi
The Mother: Josiane Stoléru
Awards:
Best Feature Film, Manfred
Salzgeber Award, Berlin (2004)
Special Jury Award, Gijon
Film Festival (2004)
Grand Jury Award, Outstanding
International Narrative
Feature, L.A.Outfest (2004)
Running time: 93’
Production: France / Belgium
United Kingdom, 2004
Rating: Not Rated (STRONG Sexual Content)
Gauge: 35mm, DVD (color)
Distributor:
Wellspring Media
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“Whether
the camera is trained on the human body, the architecture
of Paris, the fields of northern France or dancers gyrating
in a disco, the movie gives you the feeling of rediscovering
the world, moment by moment, in a revelatory waking dream.
It is a world of layered mysteries, primitive and seething
with latent violence, but exquisitely beautiful.”
Stephen Holden, The New York Times |
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Stéphanie
(whose birth name is Pierre) is a transsexual prostitute who
plies her trade in Parisian discos, parks, and hotel rooms.
She lives with Jamel, a 30-year-old North African who also
turns tricks. One night, Stéphanie meets Mikhail, an
illegal Russian immigrant. He soon falls in love with her
and she decides to live with both partners. Summoned to her
childhood home in the north of France by her dying mother
Liliane, Stéphanie tries to provide comfort to a woman
who has difficulties accepting her son’s unconventional
sexuality. Stéphanie is soon joined by Mikhail and
Jamel. Together they form a nurturing web of comfort and support
which helps her gradually make up with her mother. Her childhood
is revealed through flashbacks: a childhood marked by the
early death of her father and her sister Caroline, to whom
she was deeply attached. Liliane finally dies in her sleep.
Stéphanie buries her mother and closes the family home,
destroying all of Liliane’s possessions. Back in Paris,
Stéphanie, Mikhail and Jamel are faced with an uncertain
future: they live on the margins of a society that is uncomfortable
with people like them. The camerawork of Agnès Godard
(Beau Travail, Strayed) renders the film deeply melancholic,
sensual, and poetic.
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| PHOTO Wellspring Media |
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