While festivals are cancelled around the world, YouTube has created a new festival during the COVID-19 period: We Are One: A Global Film Festival. This 10 day festival comes from the idea that the film community can come together during crises – celebrating cinema but also in support of COVID-19 efforts. It starts tonight Australian time.
While the festival is free, you can make donations to the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, UNHCR, Save the Children, Doctors Without Borders, Leket Israel, GO Foundation and Give2Asia, among others. You can do so via a button marked “DONATE” on each film’s page.
Film festivals from around the world, including the Cannes Film Festival and Annecy International Animation Film Festival, have chosen films for We Are One.
FILMS FROM FRANCE IN THE WE ARE ONE FESTIVAL
Alteration
http://www.weareoneglobalfestival.com/events/alteration-2020
A short film from Jérôme Blanquet about the study of dreams and artificial intelligence
And then the Bear/L’heure de l’ours
http://www.weareoneglobalfestival.com/events/and-then-the-bear-2020
A animated short film from Agnès Patron in which houses burn, men and women tremble but children come together and howl as they dance on the ashes.
Isle of the Dead/ L’île des morts
http://www.weareoneglobalfestival.com/events/isle-of-the-dead-2020
Isle of the Dead is a timeless, mythical voyage from an everyday apartment toward our final destination, guided by Charon, ferryman of the Underworld. This VR experience is a loose recreation of the eponymous work painted in 1883 by the Swiss symbolist painter Arnold Böcklin, which also inspired a symphonic poem by Sergei Rachmaninov, a perfect soundtrack to accompany the experience.
The Jump/Le Grand Saut
http://www.weareoneglobalfestival.com/events/jump-2020
Of all the daredevils who dive from the rocks of Marseille’s perilously steep Corniche speedway, 22-year-old Alain Demaria is the only one to jump headfirst to “break the water.”
Occidente
http://www.weareoneglobalfestival.com/events/occidente-2020
Ana Vaz refracts the colonial history of Brazil and Portugal through objects, gestures, and contemporary customs.
On/Off
http://www.weareoneglobalfestival.com/events/on-off-2020
Many people live out their final days inside of a hospital, and in France, intensive-care personnel are becoming society’s undertakers. Going behind the closed doors of an intensive care unit, this project uncovers the rhythms of daily life for health-care professionals. As it moves through their routines, their atmosphere and their conversations, it immerses viewers in the intense demands of confronting and “managing” death on a day-to-day basis.
The Tear’s Thing/Le coup des larmes
http://www.weareoneglobalfestival.com/events/tear-s-thing-2020
Florence (India Hair) is a film actress rattled by a tragic episode in her personal life. When she’s cast as an assassin in a new movie, her preparations take her to a shooting range in the French countryside. But what she finds there will challenge her in a way she could never have seen coming.
Sébastien Tellier on Paris’ rooftop | A Take Away Show
After two months of lockdown, French artist Sébastien Tellier serenades Paris from one of its highest point of view: the roof of Le Théâtre du Châtelet, in the heart of the city. In his unexpected celestial promenade at sunset, he shares a couple of new songs in their purest acoustic forms as well as a famous jewel from a past : La Ritournelle, recorded with beloved drummer Tony Allen, to whom Sébastien pays the most poetic tribute.
INTERVIEW
Rendez-vous with Alain Delon
http://www.weareoneglobalfestival.com/events/rendez-vous-with-alain-delon-2020
Il gattopardo (The Leopard, 1963), La Piscine (The Swimming Pool, 1968), Le Clan des Siciliens (The Sicilian Clan, 1969), Borsalino (1970)…
Journalist Samuel Blumenfeld sets out to meet the man behind the legend. Speaking to a jam-packed Buñuel Theatre in the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, Alain Delon treated crowds to his insight over the course of a Masterclass. Delon pays tribute to the “talent of the muses who inspired me along the way, masters of their art, René Clément, Luchino Visconti and Jean-Pierre Melville”.
FILMS FROM CANADA AT THE WE ARE ONE FESTIVAL
The Procession/ Le cortège
http://www.weareoneglobalfestival.com/events/procession-2020
After Catherine’s fatal car accident, she speaks from beyond the grave to her grieving husband, Philip, who must endure the family ritual of the funeral. The sparing colour palette and fluid rhythm of Pascal Blanchet and Rodolphe Saint-Gelais’s 2D-animated tone poem come to show us how, despite the pressure to keep up appearances, love finds a way.
Shannon Amen
http://www.weareoneglobalfestival.com/events/shannon-amen-2020
Shannon Amen unearths the passionate and pained expressions of a young woman overwhelmed by guilt and anxiety as she struggles to reconcile her sexual identity with her religious faith. Director Chris Dainty reanimates her artwork through arresting stop-motion animation of figures carved in ice, and crafts a loving elegy to a friend lost to suicide.
Ivory Burn
http://www.weareoneglobalfestival.com/events/ivory-burn-2020
On April 30, 2016, the largest ivory burn in history took place in Nairobi National Park. Eleven pyres—comprised of 105 tons of confiscated elephant tusks and 1.35 tons of rhinoceros horn—were set on fire as a clarion call to halt all trade in ivory.
This film captures this deeply symbolic and visceral message to the poaching and illegal trade syndicates, and bears witness to the loss of animal life and the diversity it embodied.
FILMS FROM CANADA AND FRANCE AT WE ARE ONE FESTIVAL
Leon’s Animated Stories
Une série de 4 courts-métrages animés qui seront diffusés au festival We Are One.
Poppety in the Fall/ L’Automne de Pougne
http://www.weareoneglobalfestival.com/events/poppety-in-the-fall-2020
A curse magically and mysteriously erases all of the books in the kingdom. The good king Balthazar is despondent and bored to death, and by proxy, plunges his subjects into a deep depression—until a grouchy hedgehog named Poppety heads up a rescue mission to save the day.
Bonifacio in Summertime/L’été de Boniface
http://www.weareoneglobalfestival.com/events/bonifacio-in-summertime-2020
In the Kingdom of Skedaddle, a sweet-talking swindler romances Queen Héloïse, but the spell is broken when her daughter, Princess Molly, returns for summer vacation.
Molly in Springtime/Le Printemps de Mélie
http://www.weareoneglobalfestival.com/events/molly-in-springtime-2020
While the spring carnival is in full swing in Balthazar’s kingdom, the “bloated belly” disease is spreading among the revelers. Princess Molly has her doubts about the true intentions of Bonifacio the storyteller, and so she teams up with Léon the bear to outwit the Machiavellian plans of the would-be doctor.
Léon in Wintertime/ L’Hiver de Léon
http://www.weareoneglobalfestival.com/events/leon-in-wintertime-2020
As winter falls early on the kingdom, an ogre kidnaps Princess Molly Gingerbread. Before she ends up in a pea stew, her only hope may be a runaway teenage bear and two of his friends, a grumpy hedgehog and a fearful elephant.
FILMS FROM MULTIPLE COUNTRIES INCLUDING FRANCE AT WE ARE ONE FESTIVAL
Atlantics: A Ghost Love Story/Atlantiques
http://www.weareoneglobalfestival.com/events/atlantiques-2020
France, Senegal
Mati Diop’s richly textured documentary—both her experimental debut, and a precursor to her Grand Prix–winning feature Atlantics—tells the story of a young boy’s (Serigne Seck) tragic migratory voyage in Senegal.
Electric Swan
http://www.weareoneglobalfestival.com/events/electric-swan-2020
Argentina, France, Greece
Buildings are not supposed to move. But on Avenida Libertador 2050, a building moves and the ceiling shivers, causing a strange nausea that devours its residents. Those who live on the top are afraid they’ll fall – the ones who live beneath are afraid they’ll drown.
Late Marriage/Mariage tardif
http://www.weareoneglobalfestival.com/events/late-marriage-2020
France, Israel
Hilarious and sexy comedy-drama about love versus tradition in a contemporary Jewish family… According to his parents, good-looking bachelor Zaza is long overdue for marriage. Little do they know, he’s already in love with a divorced single mother.
Love Chapter 2
http://www.weareoneglobalfestival.com/events/love-chapter-2-2020
The winner of the FEDORA – Van Cleef & Arpels Prize for Ballet, Love: Chapter 2 pulses with the chaos and confusion of love. Six dancers, propelled by Ori Lichtik’s thrumming electronic score, circle each other with a livewire fluidity choreographed by Sharon Eyal.
The Van
http://www.weareoneglobalfestival.com/events/van-2020
Albania, France
A man (Phénix Brossard) risks his life to pay his and his father’s (Arben Bajraktaraj) way out of Albania with winnings from startlingly violent underground fist fights.
Volubilis
http://www.weareoneglobalfestival.com/events/volubilis-2020
France, Morocco, Qatar
In the Moroccan city of Meknes, recently married Abdelkader and Malika struggle to make ends meet. They dream of leaving the family house and finally start a life of their own together. But one day at work, Abdelkader experiences a violent incident that will turn their destiny upside down. Volubilis is a tale of love in a world of despair, of beauty among the ruins.
Bridges of Sarajevo/Les Ponts de Sarajevo
http://www.weareoneglobalfestival.com/events/bridges-of-sarajevo-2020
Bosnia and Herzegovina, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Switzerland
13 European directors including Sergei Loznitsa (Maidan), Angela Schanelec (I Was at Home, But…), Ursula Meier (Sister), Cristi Puiu (Sieranevada) and even Jean-Luc Godard, explore the theme of Sarajevo; what this city has represented in European history over the past hundred years, and what Sarajevo stands for today in Europe. These eminent filmmakers of different generations and origins offer exceptional singular styles and visions.
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WHEN: We are One : A Global Film Festival is on from this morning, Friday 29 May until 7 June (but given that YouTube is based in the USA, the festival is only starting tonight Australian time).
NOTE: We don’t know whether the films are only available at the time given or from that time. We Are One Global Festival doesn’t have a press contact and their FAQ sheds no light. It only says that many films are available on demand throughout the festival. Unfortunately, we don’t know which ones!
If you want to watch more French films after the festival, you might be interested in the following articles:
7 French films from the AFFFF 2019 on Kanopy
11 French films from the AFFFF 2019 on SBS on Demand
