H U N G R Y ..M A N
Long-métrage, fiction - 70 mn

Synopsis
Constantin, 12 ans, habite un village isolé dans les marais, dans le delta du Danube en Roumanie. Il mène une vie libre et sauvage de pêche, d’oisiveté et d’aventures dans les bois. Un jour, dans la forêt, Constantin tombe nez-à-nez avec un étranger malade est blessé. L’homme devient son butin. Il le capture et le séquestre dans un bateau. Entre eux s’installe une relation singulière.
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Constantin, 12 years old, lives in an isolated village in the marshes of the Danube delta in Romania. He leads a free and wild life of fishing, idleness and adventures in the woods. One day, in the forest, Constantin comes face to face with a sick and injured stranger. The man becomes his booty. He captures him and locks him up in a boat. Between them, a singular relationship begins.

L’équipe
Production: Eaux Vives Productions
Produit par: Xenia Maingot
Scénario, réalisation, image: Philip Martin Lacroix

Art Direction : Theodora Yervatian
Montage : Claire Atherton
Etalonnage : Vincent Amor
Ingénieur du son : Nassim El Mounabbih
Sound Design : Régis Müller
Mix : Hervé Guyader
Bruitages : Daniel Gries

Festivals
• Karlovy Vary International Film Festival - Rép. Tchèque 2013 (World Premiere)
• Thessaloniki Film Festival - Grèce 2013
• Cottbus Film Festival - Allemagne 2013
• Cinedays Skopje - Macédoine 2013
• Crossing Europe Linz - Autriche 2014

Presse internationale
KVIFF FILM CRITIC

« The story of an unexpected encounter between a young boy and an injured foreigner somewhere in the Romanian wilderness is a parable of man’s freedom in modern society. The boy lives in a decaying village in the Danube delta. It is a landscape untouched by time and modern society.

Director Philip Martin Lacroix builds his compelling story using just three basic elements: children, an injured man, and the specific landscape and nature of the delta. Martin’s daring debut does not follow a classical sequence of events, but consciously seeks out a distinctive and original form of narration using non-actors, a skeleton crew, and no musical soundtrack.

Nor is Martin in any hurry to introduce the main plot or the events that follow. He uses time to pull the viewer into the children’s frame of mind and the atmosphere of their everyday life. Nearly every shot « slows time without being boring », which philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer calls one of the defining features of art. » 

TIFF FILM CRITIC

« This story of an unexpected encounter between a young boy and a wounded foreigner somewhere in the Romanian wilderness is a parable about the freedom of man in modern society. The film was made with non-professional actors, a minimal crew and no accompanying music. The plot is subdued, while emphasis is placed on the endeavor to probe the minds of the individual characters and to create a true sense of atmosphere. » 

COTTBUS FILM CRITIC

« Romania, somewhere in the Danube Delta. A remote landscape, children play on the wreck of an abandoned ship.
An exhausted, injured stranger approaches, whom the children lock into the boat. A prisoner? An object of affection? A plaything?
Initially conceived as a documentary film, Philip Martin Lacroix’s portrait of a group of children from a secluded village ended up evolving a feature film plot.
He allows his precise observations to be guided by his instincts as a documentary filmmaker and photographer.
Proceeding slowly, in the absence of both dialogue and music and employing a keen appreciation for the local landscapes, a thoughtful reflection on the nature of human behavior, as it fluctuates between sadism and compassion, evolves.
Slowly but surely what starts out as a crude game takes on a human dimension as the adversaries draw closer through a series of movement, expressions and gestures.
With the assistance of a small crew and basic filmmaking equipment, Martin manages to portray a whole range of interpersonal encounters, ranging from fear and hatred to intimacy and compassion, all to a backdrop of an almost virgin landscape, only touched by the traces of a seemingly forgotten civilization.
This landscape serves as the scared stage of an anarchical spectacle, the dramatic understatement of which allows the viewer to open his/her senses, only to have any sense of esotericism reduced back to a primitive, some might say savage core of human and nature within a split second. »