Beaune 2nd International Thriller Film Festival

Last year, during the first edition of the Festival, Jury Chairman Claude Chabrol said: “The mission of Beaune International Thriller Film Festival is to underline the thriller genre, which is after all one of the most fertile and noble in cinema history, and precisely to try and find new tendencies, or suggest new directions.”

Keeping this ambition alive, the second edition of the Festival will take place from Thursday 8th to Sunday 11th April 2010.

The Prize list of the 1st edition confirmed the diversity of the selection as well as the ongoing success of thrillers, a genre that still shines at the height of world cinema, all categories considered.
Thus last year Grand Prize, Bertrand Tavernier’s “In the Electric Mist”, drew 860,000 viewers, and Nicolas Winding Refn’s “Bronson”, the New Blood Prize, has conquered the audience with 110,000 tickets sold. As for the “OSS 117 Rio ne répond plus” phenomenon by Michel Hazanavicius, it has appeal to 2,520,000 viewers.

TRIBUTE TO A CITY
Every year, the Beaune International Thriller Film Festival pays tribute to a city for its influence and mythological dimension within the thriller genre.
After “Paris Noir” last year, the Festival is now to honour New York City with:

NEW YORK NOIR
“NAKED CITY”

“Here is the city and here are the lights”. A camera is hovering above New York, while a voice-over comments: “It is the story of several people, and it is the story of the city itself. With its apartment houses, its skyscrapers, the hot summer pavements, the children at play, the buildings in their naked stone, the people without makeup… The city has a pulse, and it never stops beating…”
In just a few words, everything is said in this prologue to Jules Dassin’s The Naked City (1948). Leaving behind tourism and postcards, this New York is the city of film noir, with its crime-ridden alleys (Underworld USA), muggy strip-clubs (Fear City), fashionable clubs (The Wrong Man), boxing halls (Body and Soul), shabby backyards (Killer’s Kiss), dubiouslooking police stations (Detective Story), elevated railway (French Connection), fire escapes (The Window), the violence in Queens (Kiss of Death) or Harlem (A Rage in Harlem), gangs in Little Italy (Mean Streets), or Brooklyn and its famous bridge, from which Dassin contemplates the “naked city”, warning us that “there are eight million stories in the unveiled city, and we have only told you one.”
As early as in 1912 (Griffith and his Musketeers of Pig Alley), New York proved to be obsessed by darkness. And, either showing itself at dawn in the desert streets of Madigan, or hiding in the manholes fumes on the asphalt of Taxi Driver, it hasn’t stopped to share this obsession with us.

François Guérif (Publisher, creator and director of the Rivages Noir collection, and member of the Festival’s Red Circle*)
Films mentioned
- The Musketeers of Pig Alley, D.W. Griffith, 1912.
- Kiss of Death, Henry Hathaway, 1947.
- Body and Soul, Robert Rossen, 1947.
- The Window, Ted Tetzlaff, 1949.
- Detective Story, William Wyler, 1951.
- Killer’s Kiss, Stanley Kubrick, 1955.
- The Wrong Man, Alfred Hitchcock, 1956.
- Underworld USA, Samuel Fuller, 1961.
- Madigan, Don Siegel, 1968.
- French Connection, William Friedkin, 1971.
- Mean Streets, Martin Scorsese, 1973.
- Taxi Driver, Martin Scorsese, 1976.
- Fear City, Abel Ferrara, 1984.
- A Rage in Harlem, Bill Duke, 1991.
As part of the “New York Noir” tribute, a selection of emblematic films will be screened to festival-goers.

* THE RED CIRCLE
Introduced during the 1st edition of the Beaune International Thriller Film Festival, the “Red Circle” (Le Cercle Rouge) gathers fifteen personalities from literature and cinema, eminent connoisseurs of the dark lights of thriller.
These godfathers will follow every edition of the Festival and keep a benevolent eye on its cinematic intoxications. Their mission is also to give an award every year to the best French and foreign pieces of noir fiction, with two literary prizes: Le Grand Prix du roman noir français, and Le Grand Prix du roman noir étranger.
François Guérif (Publisher, creator and director of the Rivages Noir collection, journalist, translator and writer of biographies and books on film noir)
Claude Chabrol (screenwriter and director)
Marie-Caroline Aubert (publisher and writer)
Tonino Benacquista (writer and screenwriter)
Laurent Chalumeau (writer, screenwriter and lyricist)
Benoît Cohen (screenwriter and director)
Alain Corneau (screenwriter and director)
Antoine de Caunes (screenwriter, director and actor)
Jean Hernandez (film distributor)
Pierre Jolivet (screenwriter and director)
Joëlle Losfeld (publisher)
Olivier Marchal (screenwriter, director and actor)
Claude Mesplède (detective novel critic and historian)
Claude Miller (screenwriter and director)
Frédéric Schoendoerffer (screenwriter and director)

FIRST EDITION JURY AND PRIZE LIST
2009
Feature Films Jury: Claude Chabrol (Chairman), François Berléand, Amira Casar, Benoît Cohen, Anne Consigny, François Guérif, Noémie Lvovsky and Elsa Zylberstein.

PRIZES
Grand Prize – IN THE ELECTRIC MIST by Bertrand TAVERNIER
Jury Prize – JUST WALKING (Sólo Quiero Caminar) by Agustin DIAZ YANES
Critics’ Prize - SUSPECT X by Hiroshi NISHITANI
Special Police Prize - TERRIBLY HAPPY by Henrick RUBEN GENS
New Blood Jury: Etienne Chatiliez (Chairman), Sami Bouajila, Rachida Brakni, Samuel Le Bihan and
Nicolas Saada.
PRIZE
New Blood Prize: BRONSON by Nicolas WINDING REFN
Short Films Jury: Jean-Paul Rouve (Chairman), Fred Cavayé, Marius Colucci, Arié Elmaleh, Julie
Ferrier and Thomas Verovski.
PRIZE
Best Short Film Prize: BAPTEME DU FEU by Nicolas MESDOM

FESTIVAL GENERAL ORGANIZATION
LE PUBLIC SYSTEME CINEMA
40, rue Anatole France – 92594 Levallois Perret Cedex / France

FESTIVAL FOUNDER & PRESIDENT
Lionel CHOUCHAN

FESTIVAL DIRECTOR
Bruno BARDE

PRESS RELATIONS
Alexis DELAGE-TORIEL / Céline PETIT
Agnès LEROY / Annelise LANDUREAU / Clément RÉBILLAT
Tel: +33 (0)1 41 34 21 09 – Fax: +33 (0)1 41 34 20 77
E-mail: presse@lepublicsystemecinema.fr
www.lepublicsystemecinema.fr

REGIONAL PRESS RELATIONS
BEAUNE TOWNHALL
Elisabeth GODOT
Tel : +33 (0)3 80 24 57 75
elisabeth.godot@mairie-beaune.fr

BEAUNE PALAIS DES CONGRES (convention hall)
Beaune Congrès and the city of Beaune
Jean-François CHAMPION, President of Palais des Congrès
Alain SUGUENOT, MP and Mayor of Beaune

PUBLIC INFORMATION
Beaune Event-Planning Agency – Marie JACQUIN
Tel: +33 (0)3 80 24 58 50
marie.jacquin@mairie-beaune.fr
Intermunicipal Tourist Centre « Beaune, Côte & Sud »
Tel: +33 (0)3 80 26 2130
http://www.beaune-tourisme.fr

FESTIVAL OFFICIAL WEBSITE
http://www.beaunefestivalpolicier.com