François Bel

A documentary depicting the day- and nighttime behaviors of African animals.Read More »

During its presentation at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival, Fang and Claw was a sensation. The fruit of labours which spanned over two years, and whose editing amalgamated some 65,000 meters of film and 37 hours of sound, the film was unlike anything from the world of wildlife documentary. Not only was it technically interesting at the time (the construction and transportation of two large high powered spotlights for night scenes, as well as special trucks to carry them), nor the exceptional preparation required to craft each scene, but what all this work is in the service of. Totally without dialogue, with a soundtrack crafted by Michel Fano from natural sounds as well as an electronic instrumentarium, using an editing technique devoted to the rhythm and rhyme between each shot. Between plastic beauty and bloody cruelty, hunting scenes and scenes of rut, stillness, quickness, carnivorous, and nocturnal and diurnal races hound this feral world which becomes savage, becomes fragmented and alien.Read More »

Orson Welles:
The Territory of others is a treasure that must be cherished by future generations of film lovers as well as by those of today’s generation. All who see this movie will be touched and will find the presence of magic.

Daniel Deshays:
If we had to defend the idea that creativity takes precedence over the cinematographic genre, it would suffice to show / listen to this animal film. It was built as we no longer know how to do it: sound and image together. The editor Jacqueline Lecomte plays with the composer Michel Fano who invents here his own language in a sound and musical hybridity. One of the first environmental films. A poetic universe that Orson Welles described as “treasure to cherish by generations of future moviegoers”.Read More »