Producer : Vera Roth
Director   : Giil TAWS
Director of the photography : Istvan Borbas

Shooting : 16mm
Theater print: BetaSP
Running time: 11 minutes
Film Gauge: 1:2.35

Click here to view the embedded video.

The movies was shot in Mongolia in the province of Karakolum. The director of the photography Istvan Borbas (Songs from the Second Floor,World of Glory). The conditions during the shooting   were  quite difficult conditions, the temperature ranged from 20 to -20 degrees with wind and snow, still, everything was finish on time.

Glass mat painting was used for special effects, the painter in charge was Mika.

The musician/actor Pugee was from the Karakolum area as well as 80 % of the Mongolia crew.

Just before entering the desert

Above is first shot we took. It was a important step because we did not know how Pugee was going to react. Though there had been some tests  with him, it is always (quite naturally) difficult to forecast if a non professional actor is going to be in front of the camera. It went good, shooting conditions were great, with little with and blue sky.

A tear along her cheek

A mysterious and powerful young model.  A clear and deep soul that arrived in our lives, and offered the film are something of a legend .

She is waiting

This would be the heard of the movie. Clear, simple, transparent. Still shot,

Afréttur is a 52 minutes documentary shot in Iceland between 2004-2007. The film is in post-production and will be premier in Reykjavik, the 9th of October. The aim is to immersiv experience.

Larus and Palmi

As Hitchcock was stating ´better to start from a cliché than to arrive to one´. I should say that the best way to look at Afréttur would be to follow the flow of time and therefore to adopt a classical narrative script that would start some hours before the beginning of Afréttur and that would end 24 hours after. It is the essence of Afréttur  that implies to follow a certain path to build the documentary. In fact, Afréttur (called transhumance in French/English ) is of those phenomenon that witness nature as a whole, it shows this crucial notion: mankind is (a part of) nature just as sheep, dogs, horses. They are expressions of nature’s voice. Wind, sky, stones would then be the notes of this opera.

Palmi riding norh

Crossing the river

The essence is the attribute or set of attributes that make an object what it fundamentally is, and which it has by necessity, and without which it loses its identity.
Definition of transhumance : seasonal migration of livestock to summer pastures.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immersive_digital_environment

Moreover, see quantum mechanics : the more you try to observe a phenomenon ‘closely’ the more you disturb it. It is therefor better to postulate from the beginning that you are a part of it.
Birth of agriculture -10 000 BC.
This is clearly for me the time where farmers draft the sheep in the réttir. This is a great opportunity to get connected to reality again.

By realistic we mean as descriptive point of view. Shots that describ what is happening.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The writing the script had to achieve a number of objectives that we imposed the subject.

- The desire to create a film designed to generate dialogue, questions and therefore that would  not provide predetermined answers.
- The desire to write a story that would lay at the limit of inner expression and collective experiences.
- The need to echo the testimony of the young people that we gathered for the writing of the script.

The desire to make this short film we were immediately confronted me with choices that had consequences in aesthetic terms :

- Choose color over black and white to avoid dramatic effects
- Selection of preferred downtime, hollow, empty moments, details and unimportant words, because it is their very insignificance, which is significant and it is in this universe deliberately minimalist that are the roots of the movie.
- Choose an important work of the soundtrack to anchor our history in the sensitivity of the characters.
- Choice of work several months before shooting with the non-professional actors, so they can bring their sensibility to the characters.

This film is about drugs addiction.

It was designed to create dialogue with silence. What we wanted to do what to force the words out of the audience, to create such a emptyness that the reflex would be to fill it with words. And this worked. Everybody could feel waves of sounds  in the darkness : that was the poeple adjusting there positions, crossing their arms, their legs…and at the end of the movie after a time of adjustment, poeple where starting to talk.

Producer : Giil TAWS – Point Ecoute Prévention

Film by : Giil TAWS – Jean-Marc Peyrefitte
Director   : Giil TAWS
Director of the photography : Lubomir Backchev

Original : 35 mm
Theater print: 35 mm
Running time: 16 minutes
Film Gauge: 1:1.85

Producer – Director : Gil TAWS
Director of the photography : Lubomir Backchev

Original : Super 35 mm
Theater print: BetaSP
Running time: 11 minutes
Film Gauge: 1:2.35

Click here to view the embedded video.

The film is shot in Skaftahreppur a district of Iceland situated in the south of the islande. A part of the film was also shot in Reykjavik. Skaftahreppur is a special district since a large part of it is covered by lava that is originated by the Lakagigar eruption. This has greatly influenced the landscape but also the people living there and consequently the film and the shooting.

The director of the photography is Lubomir Backchev (La graine et le mulet, L’esquive).
The music is improvised by Skuli Sverrisson, recorded in New-York. Skuli Sverrisson is an Icelandic bass player. His music is profound and clear.
Both men have done a amazing work.

walking in a dream

“Sister of tears
Sister of angers,
you are the hidden beauty
of flowers.”

The entire poem (french) :

Pure exaltation
Exaltation pure
Clair, diffusant dans les airs
Le parfum des stellaires
Petite sœur,
De colère et de pleurs
Tu es la beauté
cachée
Des fleurs
Leur bonheur
Leur humeur,
Décalant le monde
Vers le gris et le bleu
Décalant le monde
De tes marées, supportant,
Les vent dominants
De ta voix
De ton chant
De ta soie
Du battement
De tes doigts
Sur les toits.

The old car

The kiss

Dozens of movies have been made about the legendary Celtic sword “Excalibur” (Caledfwlch) who was offered to King Arthur by Marianne. Those movies have been transferred to 35 mm, DVD, VHS, DIVX, thousands and thousands of copies were made. You can find them in video rentals, supermarkets, along Peer-to-peer networks… Millions of souls have seen them but how many people have seen the sword?

Over the years so many people tried to make us believe that the value of a film was the number of people who saw it, the benefits it generated and the awards it had. Because cinema was not a craft but an industry. We were never told that our movies could be legends.

We could be adventurers, craftmen and kings at the same time.

Now dear readers, I would like to share with you one of my day dreams. I was a King of modern days. My kingdom was large and prosperous. I had made for my son, not the most beautiful sword but the most beautiful film. It was created to accompany him during life’s battles. When sadness would try to drown him into its darkness, the film would shine into him and light up the path to the shore. When ghosts of the past would come and try to enlarge his heart’s wounds, the film would be there to defeat this invisible army. It would act like a sword and a shield at the same time.

He would give the film to his son, who would give it to his son and the film would travel from generation to generation till it disappeared and became legend.

A movie can be a sword.

When I decided to have this movie created, I knew that it should be like a sword. A straight and double-edged movie which could cut at once the head of its owner’s doubts.

Long to be powerful but short enough to leave its owner with a necessary degree of freedom. The film should be light to allow speed and versatility of the owner spirit. It should be made of the finest material, for time to flow smooth over it.

When I opened my eyes, I realized two things:

Firstly that my film could be a sword for a king, that another one could be a beautiful dress, a shelter for the one spirit who suffers.

My film could be everything but a film.

Secondly, I realized that I could make a film for a single person, and a single person could watch it. It would not decrease its value, or alter its nature.

Excalibur was one and only one, owned by one and only one man.

My movie does not have to be seen by as many people as possible.

It does not have to make money or go to markets and get prices.

The reason is simple: because talking to one man or a million men is the same. Like the straw of grass contains the whole universe.

A single human being contains the whole humanity.

Held this idea in my mind for years but did not have the means to make it come to life. I have been working in my lab for months and I start to feel the strain of  this reclusion on my spirit, my and my body.
Yet, I feel stronger than ever before.
I started by building the skeleton in the heart of wintertime.
Bone by bone.
I should have finished soon because I already have glimpse of flesh in my day dreams and nightmares. I can´t wait for that, can´t wait to see if this multi-pieced body will shine with harmony and if it will inspire pity and distrust. But what I fear the most and what has been sucking energy out of my brain like a parasite is the absolute despair that I will face if my  Creature will have no soul.

05/07/10

I gave “it” a name : The Vertical Theory. It is an old one and is not definitive but this will be the name of the skeleton.
I gave myself two objectives :
finish the skeleton before the end of the summer.
finish the flesh before the end of the winter.
The autumn is going to be the moment of transition, the place where waters come together.
Yesterday, I did progress well, adding an important join to the legs : an unknown man is horse-riding to the group, event that insufflates fear and panic in the group and that will ultimately set thing in motion again.
I got in the evening, striking shocks as clear as melted ice.  The last image that came to me was the mother and her baby in the shelter cave drinking dripping water while waiting for the air outside to clear.

12/07/10

I have placed an important piece of the structure yesterday; Realizing hours latter how of a central and strategic position it was situated. From now on, the story is going to bend,  things that were still should go into motion, things that were being built in the shadows should come to light and the daemons that hide underwater will tear up the surface.Yes, I did have a central piece and this is one more step forward to the end.

From the horizon, a man is horse riding toward them. This event is frightening because of its lack of explanation and reason. Two sub-groups are created : the one that want to talk to this stranger and other that want to reject him for he is, to them, death. Ultimately, he will be the grain of sand that will disturb and breaks hell loose. He is now making he first steps towards them with a way out to freedom and life.

14/07/10

My work has been drastically slowing down until I realized that at this stage of the conception, the distance between the join should be increased. That make perfect sens, longer bone for the lower part of the body, with a reduction of the size towards the end. I am entering a new area of the story. It is a valuable assets to get  this precept.

I have also now a clear map of the geography :

21/07/10

Yestarday, a friend of mine send me a warning  : “beware of the villagers with their nasty forks and shovels“. I did follow her advice and when night fell down, I put all lights to death, double check the locks and stayed home, working far into the night with only one candle. I could not go to sleep since, that day, was an extremely creative one. Major ideas took shapes in my thoughts and where cascading in my mind for many hours. The strength of the process, the load of the work created high tensions in my body and I force myself into rest today so as to be be more efficient tomorrow. Before laying down, I ventured outside and did not see anything abnormal, seems like nobody was around during the night. I met with the priest and did not feel any tension in him.

I think I am safe to keep on…

2005. A summer night on the north coast of Bretagne. The moonlight explodes in pieces against the sharp waves of a dark and deep sea, which is murmuring to our ears the sacred peace of this moment. We are a small groupe of contemporary human beeings, males and females. We have been eating, walking and we are now silently sitting on the top of a large square rock.

The wind is fresh, nearly cold but my full belly keeps me warm and relaxed. Dark silhhouettes surround me, David, Marie, Julien, Jean-Michel.

In the middle of notime, Julien tells me : « It feels like if we were prehistorical men ». He is right, I know it, i feel it deep into my flesh. Yes, those forgotten feelings visited me before. Next time you sit, in the night, close to a fire, take some time, to feel the security, the strange fascination, the nice confort which fils you spirit. Thousands and thousands of years separate you from those humans of ancient times. Still, you are linked.

Julien was right, a very ancient feeling came. I stood up and when to David. He was sleeping, laying on his back, facing the stars. I woke him up with sounds that I thought sounded authentic prehistorical. Simultanously, he opened his eyes and said : Nagnu. I turned around to the others and said : Nagnu. Immediatly they repeated Nagnu, nagnu, nagnu. It seems so natural, still so unknown. Without a meaning but still buried deep inside each one of us. The Nagnu was there.

I understood that feelings could travel with our instinct though time and that words could too, not on stones, not on paper, but within each one of us. I decided that Nagnu was one of the primitive words. I am neither a scientist nor a magician. But I wrote down mentaly this hypothesis : Nagnu was the first word. Lots of doors opened nearly instantly in my mind, which was a proof that my hypothesis was good. And my first idea was that if there was a first word, then this word would meant anything and nothing at the same time. This is how Nagnu became the name and the objective of my quest as a poet, the upstrean journey along the rivers which carries our instincts to the sea, which defines us and reflect our soul.

But this is an article about cinema. So where is the link between, prehistorical words, feelings, Nagnu, beeing around a fire a night

The main thing is that a film is a trip you take poeple on. So, you d better know were you are going, it used to be love story-land, horror-land, comic-land. Now we know. We know the name of the destination : Nagnú-land.

• To Chill which is what the directors were mostly interested in,
• Konkern is the breton name of the city they spent there time in,
• Chilli Con Carne is the name of the mexican dish.

Lonely Wolf

The Cows : a philosophy

Beat editing

The knight

Back in time

The visit

http://blog.giiltaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/chillin_interview.mp3

Directors   : Giil TAWS & Vidi Fridbertsson

Original : DV Cam
Theater print:DV Cam & DVD
Running time: 53 minutes
Film Gauge: 1:1.85

Actress : Muriel Benazeraf.

Before humanity was born, there was no word.
Things, beeings, were uncathegorized, everything was one.
But slowly, shouts, murmurs, complains became words.
Words became identities, carrying there own meaning,
like cells carry their own genetical informations.

Words were alive, words were dying.

None of those native words reached us. It is of course possible to find some traces of them. If we would have been archaeologists, we could have excavated some words, and maybe find the remnants of them. Fossilized words.

But recently, one of them arrived to us.

He was alive, with flesh and bones, with a voice, with a spirit.
He is alive with flesh, bones, voice, spirit.
The first word ever spoken that meant anything and everything
at the same time.

12/14/05