Retour en Normandie (2007)

Director:

Nicolas Philibert

Release Date:

25 July 2008 (USA)

Genre:

Documentary

Plot:

A filmmaker returns to Normandy thirty years after a working on a movie based on a local homicide and tries to find the actors who worked on the project. |

Plot Keywords:

Actor | Farm | Normandy France | Pig | Cemetery

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Anne Borel	...	Herself
Claude Hébert	...	Himself
Nicolas Philibert	...	Himself
Nicole Picard	...	Herself

Directed by
Nicolas Philibert

Produced by
Serge Lalou	....	producer
Gilles Sandoz	....	co-producer

Cinematography by
Katell Djian

Film Editing by
Nicolas Philibert

Production Management
Tatiana Bouchain	....	production manager
Sophie Vermersch	....	post-production manager

Sound Department
Julien Cloquet	....	sound editor
Julien Cloquet	....	sound re-recording mixer
Yolande Decarsin	....	sound

Visual Effects by
Fred Roz	....	titles

Camera and Electrical Department
Justine Bourgade	....	assistant camera
Katell Djian	....	camera operator
Nicolas Philibert	....	camera operator

Editorial Department
Thaddée Bertrand	....	assistant editor
Nicolas Criqui	....	digital conformation
Raymond Terrentin	....	colorist

Production Companies

• CNC
• Canal+
• France Télévision Distribution
• Les Films d'Ici
• Maïa Films
• TPS Star
• arte France Cinéma

Distributors

• Kino International (2008) (USA) (theatrical) (subtitled)
• Les Films du Losange (2006) (France) (theatrical)
• Palisades Tartan (2009) (UK) (all media)

Also Known As:

"Back to Normandy" - UK (informal English title), USA (new title)
"Rückkehr in die Normandie - Retour en Normandie" - Germany
"Retorno à Normandia" - Brazil (festival title)

Runtime:

113 min

Country:

France

Language:

French

Color:

Color

Filming Locations:

Normandie, France

Company:

CNC

Movie Connections:

Features Moi, Pierre Rivière, ayant égorgé ma mère, ma soeur et mon frère... (1976)

You Caan Go Home Again

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Blame Roger Kahn. As a fledgling reporter Kahn was assigned to 'cover' the Brooklyn Dodgers in the early fifties, which meant he travelled with the team, roomed with them from Spring Training through to the end of the season. Thirty years later he thought it might be interesting to find out what had become of the individual players so he sought them out, interviewed them at length and published his findings as The Boys Of Summer, one of the finest books about baseball ever written by anyone anywhere. Thirty years ago Nicolas Philbert was a fledgling filmmaker who worked on a film made on location in Normandy and utilised real natives as opposed to actors to relate the facts of a real triple murder in the nineteenth century. Thirty years later Philbert went back to Normandy to trace the non-actors who appeared in the film and his findings comprise his latest film Back To Normandy. It defies categorization melding travelogue with philosophy, metaphysics and nostalgia into a richly satisfying whole that perhaps falls just a tad short of his wonderful Etre et Avoir which did for the Auvergne what this latest effort does for Normandy. I doubt if it will play many Multiplexes or 'speak' to the bubblegum crowd but that's their loss.