The Competition
All Films
•
2h 0m
Directed by Claire Simon | 121 mins | 2016
The Competition begins, significantly, with the image of a locked gate—that of La Fémis, one of the most prestigious film schools in the world, offering hands-on training from working professionals and accepting only 40 students per year from hundreds of applicants. This Wiseman-esque documentary from Claire Simon, one of France’s premiere nonfiction filmmakers, observes the process whereby those lucky 40 are selected—a process that is revealed to be highly personal, idiosyncratic, and subject to the vagaries of taste and personal prejudice. Funny, penetrating, and surprisingly suspenseful, The Competition offers not only a unique opportunity to see the inner workings of an institution at the very heart of the French film industry but an invitation to look at the assumptions and roadblocks that shape any national film industry, and higher education in general.
A Metrograph Pictures release.
Up Next in All Films
-
The Damned
Directed by Roberto Minervini | 88 mins | 2024
Roberto Minervini followed his staggering Deep South missive "What You Gonna Do When the World’s On Fire?" (2018) with this heady time capsule from the American Civil War’s Western front, for which he took home Un Certain Regard’s Best Director prize... -
The Days Before Christmas
Directed by Terence Macartney-Filgate, Stanley Jackson and Wolf Koenig | 30 mins | 1958
Montreal’s malls, churches, and clubs alike are abuzz with the Yuletide spirit in this beautifully observed short documentary—the inaugural episode of pioneering vérité series “The Candid Eye,” which aired on ... -
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu
Directed by Cristi Puiu | 147 mins | 2005
Responsible more than any other film for establishing Romanian film as an international force, Puiu’s second feature is a scabrous satire of broken institutions that begins with the ailing elderly Mr. Lazarescu calling an ambulance, then follows him on an...
