SYNOPSIS
Mauritius Island, in Nouvelle-Découverte
Cane is not profitable anymore. It is the last time the fields will be cut. Luxury residential houses are built where cane sugar fields used to grow. Marco, Bissoon, Rosario and their friends spent their lifes working on sugar cane fields of Nouvelle-Découverte. When the sugar factory closed down, the world they lived in changed overnight. They would hang out in Ah-Yan shop, dreaming of a fresh start, a new life or migrating somewhere. When Devi, a mysterious young woman, settles in the big house facing the old laborer's camp, she becomes the talk of the village.
The story of their everyday life unfolds itself, revealing shared bonds of human resilience stronger than ever. Lonbraz Kann is a narrative about modern times and ourselves, about a society caught in the web of time with the global intruding in the individual life. Set on an Indian Ocean islandtrailing its cliché of paradise, Lonbraz Kann shows the other side of the obstinate postcard of happy tropical people...
Lonbraz Kann, in English: "Shady Sugar Canes"
SCRIPTWRITING
In 2006 and 2007, David CONSTANTIN wrote a first draft of the script.
In 2008, the filmmaker met the scriptwriter Sabrina COMPEYRON durinf the scriptwriting workshops of Île Courts-International Short Film Festival in Mauritius. The short film developped in this occasion, Made in Mauritius, already carries the concerns and the spirit that are the ones of Lonbraz Kann.
In 2009, one year after, Sabrina COMPEYRON joined the project as co-scrptwriter. Between Mauritius and Paris, the rewriting of the script has beengoing on for more than a year, restructuring each elements of the project (story, characters, narrative). Several professionnals have given their advices to the rewriting process. The scriptwriter Olivier GORCE (Omar m’a Tuer, Coup d’éclat and Violence des échanges en milieu tempéré) has been appointed as scriptdoctor.
Throught its origins, its developments and its form, Lonbraz Kann is a direct heir project of Île Courts Festival in Mauritius, founded and runned by the non-profit organization Porteurs d'Images.
FILM DEVELOPMENT
All along its development, Lonbraz Kann script has took part to several workshops/labs:
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Workshop "Produire au Sud" in Nantes in France (2009),
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FADS, ex-"Sans Sucre project", in Amines in France (2009),
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Francophone Production Forum in Namur Film Festival in Belgium (2010)
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and Open Doors, Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland (2012).
These meetings have been an opportunity for Lonbraz Kann project to mature, to face different views, to question its process, both in the scriptwriting and in the production sides. It also offers the authors to feel deeply convinced in the relevance of the subject, and its universality.
PICTURES
TECHNICAL RIDER
DIRECTOR
David CONSTANTIN
SCRIPTWRITERS
Sabrina COMPEYRON
David CONSTANTIN
PRODUCTION
Caméléon Production (Mauritius)
Atopic (France)
Lithops Films (Réunion Island)
PARTENAIRE
Iris Imaginaçoes (Mozambique)
FUNDERS
ACP CULTURES+ (European Union/ ACP Countries)
Cinémas du Monde (France)
Agence Film Réunion (Réunion Island)
Board of Investment (Mauritius)
OIF-Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie
The Global Film Initiative (U.S.A.)
ASSOCIÉS
CanalSat (Mauritius)
Culture & Avenir (Mauritius)
Stubborn in Dreams (Mauritius)
SHOOTING
November/December 2013
in Mauritius
LANGUAGES
Mauritian creol
SBT French & English
RELEASE TENTATIVE DATE > May 2014
FORMAT > HD Camera
SEQUENCE IN MAKING
A sequence of the present film has been adaptated and directed by David CONSTANTIN in the short film entitled Made in Mauritius, in the 2009 Île Courts Festival collection ANSAM.
Produced on a very limited budget (800 euros), this short film has been widely broadcasted in Festivals, public screenings and televisions.
In 2011, Made in Mauritius was awarded in Cinéafricano Festival in Milan (Italy). The same, it was the first Mauritian short film to ever enter the official international competition of Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival (France).
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