THE OLYMPIC FLAME
A FILM BY GUIL SELA
Short Film – France – 2023 – 18 min
Color | French, English and Japanese with English subtitles | 1.66 | 5.1
SYNOPSIS
Thaïs, a 17 years old girl is desperate about the mysterious paralysis affecting the planet. To make money and reopen cafés, she sets up a juicy business for Tokyo Olympic games tickets, taking place during the summer.
Cast
Thais Bacquerot, Nathan Roche, Hugues Perrot, Louise Amalric, Edouard Sulpice, Guil Sela, Carla Audebaud, Abraham Wapler, Sébastien Bailly
Crew
DIRECTOR : Guil Sela
WRITER : Guil Sela
PRODUCERS : Noëlle Levenez (Les Films Norfolk)
CINEMATOGRAPHY : Axell Katomba
PRODUCTION DESIGN : Guil Sela
SOUND DESIGN : Max Laffitte, Sarah Lelièvre
EDITING : Lou Revillon and Guil Sela with the collaboration of Paul Nouhet
MUSIC : Studio Rodeo and Félix Loizillon
Director statement
The Olympic Flame is the cinematographic form that I found to account for what appeared to me as one of the strangest periods of modern history, those years 2020 and 2021 that forced so many human beings to lock themselves up at home and wait until it is over. In my movie, I decided to erase the cause of this situation (this damned covid that I had no desire to evoke…) to focus on the consequence : the great silence of this world at rest. One day, in a Parisian grocery shop, I met Thaïs, a young woman, so lively and funny that it seemed like she had no idea of what was going on around her. I understood her apparent nonchalance was hiding something ver sad and I decided to build a burlesque movie around her. Together, we crafted this loud, colourful and naive tale, since it was exactly what we were missing in our lives that were taking a long nap.
DIRECTOR’S BIOGRAPHY
Guil Sela is a young artist born in Israel in 1996. Residing in France since his childhood, he now devotes himself fully to his activities as an author-filmmaker and photographer. He is the author of several works of fiction, including La Flamme Olympique, his first produced film, selected at the WIP of the Cannes Film Festival. In 2023 he will shoot his second short film, Santa Maria Kyoko, about a Japanese couple in the midst of a break-up on the island of Beauty. In parallel, he is working on the writing of his three future films ; No skate!, Jacob and his good star, and The discrete charm of Normandy, shorts and features that will continue to explore with humor and melancholy the irony that lies behind our tragic topicalities.
FILMOGRAPHY
THE OLYMPIC FLAME I 2023
POUR L’ERRANCE I 2020
FESTIVALS & AWARDS
Cinema Jove – Valencia, 2023
Edinburgh Short Film Festival, 2023
Izmir International Short Film Festival, 2023