Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire
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“Sometimes the Cinema is Here To Make You Watch Something You Don’t Want to Watch”: Director Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire on Asphalt City
With his features Johnny Mad Dog and A Prayer Before Dawn — the former a breakneck, road-to-ruin chronicle of child soldiers in war-torn Liberia and the latter a visceral portrait of a British expat, imprisoned in Thailand on a drug charge and conscripted into a violent kickboxing competition — French-born director Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire has consistently dropped viewers into extreme, ultra-violent scenarios, employing a mis-en-scene steeped in hyper-graphic realism to compel a one-to-one relationship between his audience and protagonists. His most recent feature, Asphalt City, is no different. Sauvaire’s first film to shoot in the US, where he has lived for over a […]
by Evan Louison on Mar 29, 2024 -
Trailer Watch: A Prayer Before Dawn
Director Jean-Stephane Sauvaire, whose 2008 debut feature, Johnny Mad Dog, was a thrillingly immersive journey into the world of African child soldiers, makes his long-awaited return to theaters with another picture — A Prayer Before Dawn — set within a violent community: Thai kickboxers in the country’s infamous Bang Kwang Central Prison. Wrote Guy Lodge at Variety upon the film’s Cannes premiere: Competition is stiff for the title of cinema’s most violently harrowing prison drama, and tougher still for the all-time most pummeling boxing movie. Gutsily, Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire’s A Prayer Before Dawn”comes out fighting for both, landing a number of […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 30, 2017 -
SHORT FILM: “CLICHE,” A DEATH-OF-CELLULOID NOIR
The death of celluloid is a terrifying concept for many filmmakers. That nightmare, of a cinematic dystopia where film stock is contraband, inspired this witty short by Vincent Lacrocq and Thierry De Clermont. It stars the filmmakers along with Mika Zimmerman, and director Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire also makes an appearance. Check it out below.
by Scott Macaulay on May 10, 2012 -
“JOHNNY MAD DOG” writer-director, Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 16, 8:30 am — Prospector Square Theatre, Park City] Johnny Mad Dog is based on a novel by Emmanuel Dongala. At first, I wrote a faithful adaptation of the book following the same narrative construction, which was centered on two main characters: Johnny, a 15-year-old child soldier, and Laokolé, a 13-year-old girl who runs away with her family. They are in the same situation in the last days of a civil war in Africa. The same unit of time, place and space. Two roads which cross paths, two different points of view, two destinies. Once this […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 8, 2009
