Awards and prizes
Motivation of the Jury :
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Marie Laetitia Guillier for her interpretation of the character Elsa, from the eponymous film by Jean-Marc Guillier, in which she achieves to embody, only by interacting with a child asking naive questions, all the poetic nuances et various emotions that the film expresses, playing with memories and transforming into a fairytale, through the glance of a young girl, a real and tough story of struggles, abandon and harmful losses.
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Being a child no more, neither yet a woman, the actress is notably talented for confronting and overcoming a difficult challenge: conveying simultaneously both aspects of, on one side, the game, the memories and the fairytale, and on the other side the emotions provoked by the experience of a world of suffering et pain, hidden behind that game ; putting on the shoes of a child, when she remembers the few moments of joy and airiness shared with her family, and the shoes of a woman when she cries out of despair because the past will never come back, to finally become a child again when at the end of the film, a kite flies high in the sky.
Motivation of the jury:
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A play that holds hidden and deep stories.Motivation of the jury:
Weaving words and thoughts, light and childlike glances.
A narrative with the right directorial and photographic quality that, thanks to the acting performance of the two boys, enhances the dramatic and dense atmosphere.
But with a certain surreal lightness, we are catapulted into a fairy-tale atmosphere which, with that almost vintage touch, transports us to beautiful sensations.
Motivation of the Jury
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“We the selection committee of NaNo film festival select five films in each category and then we leave them in the hands of the public to judge them, there are not ours anymore. But this year we also wanted to keep the privilege of distinguishing one film that has particularly drawn our attention.
So in the name of NaNo film festival, for the courage of having shot on film, for keeping alive this way of filming from the past, and for doing it without even a production company, the prize goes to Jean-Marc and Marie-Agnes Guillier for their film Elsa.”
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Article about Elsa
Elsa a tale printed on film
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“Elsa” is the short film that won the Special Prize at the fourth edition of the NaNo Film Festival. The first work of the Parisian director Jean-Marc Guillier, “Elsa” is a fairy tale that delves into distant memories. A story recorded on film. The film takes us back to the time when a simple strip of celluloid was the result of artistic work. Its raw aspect mixed with a twilight atmosphere gives the film a soul, a body and a time. Elsa is a little girl who takes refuge in memories and looks at the past with a romantic and strongly melancholic air. Her memory path is crossed by a long track that she often follows, in balance. However, a boy named Paul distracts her from her path by pressing her with various questions that unpack Elsa's family's problematic past. The latter, a young girl hardened by the pains of life who turns her back on the present and projects herself into the past, where she can relive carefreeness. And Paul, a kid whose everything he knows about life points to a big question mark.
The story unfolds like a fairy tale. The memories that the protagonist relives are part of her imagination but seem more real than ever. Throughout the story, Elsa sets goals for herself but seems conditioned by a world that no one but her can see. Through a deeply nostalgic production, Jean-Marc Guillier succeeded in making the film a kind of journey in which we can all find ourselves, a time machine which takes us back to these sensations which mix well with the surrounding atmosphere , appearing blurry and indefinable. The performances of the actors then add this touch of naivety which gives even more substance to the story which does not pretend to sadden but simply wants to enchant.
Watch the film
Music from the film
