I was lucky enough to catch Louis Garrel on stage in Paris recently and exploring his film work has been something of a pleasure, he’s an intriguing actor who I definitely haven’t seen enough of. Diarchy (or Diarchia) is a 2010 short by Ferdinando Cito Filomarino. Garrel and Riccardo Scamarcio play Luc and Giano, two friends whose complex relationship is tested when they take shelter in Luc’s family villa during a storm. Their competitiveness comes to fore, along with a delicious hint of homoeroticism, and the whole thing is beautifully shot by Filomarino.
Luke Norris is best known as an actor (currently wowing crowds as part of the excellent A View from the Bridge) but he is also a up-and-coming writer of note and Sparks is one of two short films that he has written or co-written. Beautifully directed by Nele Hecht with stunning cinematography from Christopher Moon, it is the story of a boy and a girl who meet at the end of a memorial service for a burned-out house and decide to spend the day together, tentatively exploring what it is that binds them. Florence Hall and Farren Morgan both give striking performances as the haunted pair and it makes for quite an affecting film in the end.
Karim Adda’s J’ai plein de projets is a fun little thing, starring himself as a wheeler-dealer who tries to convince pretty much everyone in his life to join in on one scheme or another with him. It is fast moving and brilliantly edited together by Eric Jacquemin and more importantly, there’s a proper blink-and-miss-it cameo from my new favourite French actor Laurent Lafitte as ‘Celui qui se nettoie l’oreille’. The credits are actually quite amusing so I’d definitely recommend watching right through to the end.
I had this film sent to me anonymously and though on first appearance, it may look like a dodgy student film, I have to say I found it quite amusing in the end. Described as a rites of passage comedy, it’s a slightly surreal take on student living written by Chris Hale, following three room-mates, one of whom dreams of escaping his mundane existence to become Tom Cruise in Cocktail and has an unhealthy fixation on his bottle of angostura bitters. It’s silly but fun.