Archive of films Far Side of the Moon / La face cachée de la lune

Canada
2003, 105 min

Section: Focus on Canadian Film: Beginning of the 3rd Millennium
Year: 2005

This intimate tale of forty-year-old Philippe, a lyrical soul and unhappy outcast, is told with sensitivity for everyday details and a talent for evoking fantastic visions. The actual theme, however, pays unostentatious tribute to the strength of mutual human cooperation.

Synopsis

Like another Canadian film screened this year at the festival (I, Claudia), The Far Side of the Moon is an adaptation of a one person theatre show, this time written for a male performer. Several characters appear on screen in addition to main hero Philippe: his brother André also plays a key role, both vividly acted by the writer-director, celebrated Canadian filmmaker Robert Lepage. He experiments with HD digital technology to evoke Philippe’s sensitive world of feelings; for years he has been vainly struggling to push through his scientific work on the cosmos. At age fifteen he underwent brain surgery and its consequences are the apparent cause of his difference: at forty, he is lonely, withdrawn, fixated on his mother and his unsuccessful theories, and is out of touch with his brother. His life is already embittered by permanent disappointment, then he must suddenly come to terms with his motherVs death. But one positive element is his new-found awareness of his brother’s solidarity: André’s proffered hand which rids Philippe of all earthly burdens....

About the director

Robert Lepage (b. 1957, Quebec) began studying at the Conservatoire d’Art Dramatique de Québec in 1975. Then after a year’s internship in Paris (1978) he began writing, directing and acting for the theatre. He gained fame with his innovative directorial approach to a wide repertoire of plays, and in the 1990s he even directed Shakespeare at London’s Royal National Theatre. In the same period when he founded his multidisciplinary production company Ex Machina (1994), he debuted with a writer-director feature, The Confessional (Le confessional, 1995), screened at Cannes. In addition to being one of Canada’s foremost men of the theatre, he has shot a total of five films, distinctive for their formal and narrative experimentalism: Le Polygraph (1996), Nô (1998) and Possible Worlds (2000). All of his films have been shown at the Karlovy Vary IFF. For his latest film, The Far Side of the Moon (2004) he won the FIPRESCI Prize at the 2004 Berlinale.

Contacts

Max Films International
1751, rue Richardson, bureau 2.102, H3K 1G6, Montreal, Quebec
Canada
Tel: +1 514 282 8444
Fax: +1 514 282 9222
E-mail: [email protected]
www: www.maxfilms.ca

Telefilm Canada
360, rue Saint-Jacques, Suite 600, H2Y 1P5, Montreal, Quebec
Canada
Tel: +1 514 283 636 3
Fax: +1 514 283 236 5
E-mail: [email protected]
www: www.telefilm.gc.ca

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About the film

Color, 35 mm

Section:	Focus on Canadian Film: Beginning of the 3rd Millennium

Director:	Robert Lepage
Screenplay:	Robert Lepage
Dir. of Photography:	Ronald Plante
Music:	Benoît Jutras
Editor:	Philippe Gagnon
Producer:	Bob Krupinski, Mario St-Laurent
Production:	Media Principia & Films FCL
Cast:	Robert Lepage, Anne-Marie Cadieux, Marco Poulin, Céline Bonnier
Contact:	Max Films International, Telefilm Canada

www:	www.lafacecacheedelalune.com

Guests

Brigitte Hubmann

Film Institution Rep.

Jean Claude Mahé

Film Institution Rep.

Alexandra Wermester

Sales Agent