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 […]

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.

[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 […]