In Conversation – Lindsay Anderson and Mamoun Hassan

In May 1973, just after the release of Lindsay Anderson’s O Lucky Man, London University Audio Visual (LUAV) filmed a conversation/interview with Lindsay Anderson and me. O Lucky Man was the focus of the interview, which was part of an LUAV planned series of interviews with leading figures of the time. The results would be kept in a kind of time capsule and would not be released until fifty or a hundred years later. The project was abandoned early on.

The Meeting (1965) Produced and Directed by Mamoun Hassan

Mamoun was discussing the early steps of working in cinema with a young colleague and she asked him how he started in the industry.

Mamoun realised that he had never spoken about his first completed work: The Meeting, made in 1964.

As Mamoun’s first experiments in directing and writing were very dialogue heavy, he felt that he should try to create a piece that had no dialogue at all – as an exercise. The exercise became something else.

The finished film went to Oberhausen in 1965 where it was well received and won a prize. It was reviewed at length in Cahiers du Cinema and as part of the review of the Oberhausen festival in Positif. Both publications are recognised as the two most important film journals in France.

United Artists distributed the film in in Europe as a short feature.

Cast and Crew

Peter Suschitzky has become a renowned International cinematographer.

Dave King became an illustrious documentary and fiction senior editor at the BBC.

Cleo Boman is a Swedish actor who has worked in theatre and film and is now a director with the Mittiprickteatern, one of the oldest free theatres in Sweden.

John Stokes decided against joining the British film industry, to our considerable loss, and has worked as an artist/designer and also as a theatre designer and actor at the Maddermarket Theatre in Norwich. I thank him for traveling on a train in handcuffs (which we had to return to the local police station which had lent them to us).

One of Mamoun’s hands is also in the film….

Revue

The extract revue by Bernard Cohn in Positif No. 70 from the Oberhausen Film Festival 1965 (Le Tour Du Monde en 144 heures) is translated here:

The Meeting by Mamoun Hassan is one of the most beautiful films of this festival. It’s subject – in a deserted railway station a woman is waiting. She is anxious and her anxiety increases as time passes. An express train rushing through the station at top speed adds to her state of anxiety. A few minutes later a small suburban train slowly comes to a halt. The woman runs towards a carriage door at which a man has appeared. A series of wonderful linked mixes shows them embracing. Suddenly, we see that the man is in handcuffs. He is pulled back roughly by a hand from the corridor. The train whistles and starts to move away, then disappears round a bend in the track. The woman remains alone on the platform and then leaves, back towards the town, where she disappears.

Mamoun Hassan has succeeded in creating a world in which the feelings of solitude and sadness – but also of joy and love – become tangible. Hassan has filmed these grey, sad, tragic settings, these lost characters, with astonishing sensitivity and rigour.

 

Bill Douglas: Childhood Trilogy in Le Monde: Justified Sinner

Three of the most compelling films about childhood and adolescence – ever made – released for the first time on DVD by BFI.

Bill Douglas has always been appreciated in France but the enthusiastic response of the cinephile media to the DVD release two weeks ago of the Trilogy shows that his status is now higher than ever. He is spoken of as in the ‘pantheon’ of British directors.

It is particularly gratifying to read a glowing tribute to Bill’s work by Thomas Sotinel in Le Monde*. His piece also recognises the role the British Film Institute played in helping the young Scot get his first feature film off the ground in the early 1970’s – and contains a reference link to an account on this very website: Bill Douglas – his ain man – (as published by Sight and Sound in 1991)

It is my greatest regret that after I commissioned Bill to write a screenplay adaptation of James’ Hogg’s 19th Century Classic, Confessions of a Justified Sinner, no funding was forthcoming to make what I believe was a personal and inspired adaptation. I stand by what I said in the article more than 20 years ago:

I hope that when the film is made — and it will be — I can, in my mind at least, make peace with him.

* published at http://www.lemonde.fr/culture/article/2013/07/30/bill-douglas-une-enfance-en-ecosse_3455298_3246.html subscription only,  but may be read in full if you put ‘Le Monde’ and ‘Bill Douglas’ into your search engine!

With Andres Wood in Oslo

Mamoun has just returned from the FILMS FROM THE SOUTH festival in OSLO
where he accompanied his close friend, co-writer and producer colleague
the leading South American director ANDRES WOOD to showings of his three
latest works:

Machuca 2004 CHILE Dir. Andres Wood,(co-writer and co-producer Mamoun
Hassan)
La Buena Vida 2008 CHILE Dir. Andres Wood (co-writer and co-producer
Mamoun Hassan)
Violeta Went to Heaven 2011  CHILE Dir. Andres Wood

Andres’ latest work VIOLETA WENT TO HEAVEN  took the World Cinema Jury
Prize at SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL 2012 and is appearing at this week’s BFI
LONDON FILM FESTIVAL and will be on theatrical release in North America
from November.

My Brother the Devil – update

My Brother the Devil picked up the World Cinema Cinematography Award at the Sundance Film Festival.

For more information and reviews, see the links below:

Sundance Festival site

The Hollywood Reporter

Screen International

MY BROTHER THE DEVIL

Written and Directed by Sally El Hosaini; Produced by Gayle Griffiths, Julia Godzinskaya, Michael Sackler; Edited by Iain Kitching.

Mamoun was Editing Consultant on MY BROTHER THE DEVIL.

Selected to compete in the World Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival  January 2012

New Movie Masterclasses

New Movie Masterclasses are in preparation — dates to be confirmed.

Justified Sinner

The project that Mamoun developed with Bill Douglas is now in a new phase — a new director is attached and actively in negotiation with multinational investors.