Most people would have a very hard time finding New Caledonia on a map, let alone know who rules there. One has to look at the other side of the earth, as the archipelago lies in the South-West Pacific, relatively close to the coast of Australia. This makes New Caledonia, at a distance of some 16,000 kilometres from France, just about its furthest colonial possession. When the FLNKS (Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste), an armed Melanesian socialist separatist organization made up mainly of Kanaks (New Caledonia’s original inhabitants), took some 30 people hostage on 22 April 1988, the far-away capital retaliated – with extreme prejudice. Opération Victor, a joint commando operation involving SWAT teams from four different branches of the French armed forces and police, ended in a bloodbath. Actor/director Mathieu Kassovitz uses this rather sordid foreign politics disaster for a scathing comment on how France has dealt with the last remnants of its erstwhile colonial empire.
Film details
Productieland
France
Jaar
2011
Festivaleditie
IFFR 2017
Lengte
136'
Medium/Formaat
DCP
Taal
French
Première status
None
Director
Mathieu Kassovitz
Screenplay
Mathieu Kassovitz, Pierre Geller, Benoît Jaubert
Cinematography
Marc Koninckx
Editing
Thomas Beard, Lionel Devuyst, Mathieu Kassovitz
Production design
Bruno Coupe, Emmanuelle Cuillery, Giuseppe Ponturo
Sound design
Guillaume Bouchateau
Music
Klaus Badelt
Principal cast
Mathieu Kassovitz, Iabe Lapacas, Malik Zidi, Alexandre Steiger, Daniel Martin, Philippe Torreton, Sylvie Testud