Guy Lodge Film CriticPhilippe Lacôte’s career in film began at the end, rather than the beginning, of the cinematic life cycle: as a projectionist in a small regional theater in Toulouse, France, where the Ivory Coast-born director had moved to study linguistics.
Those studies had led to work as a fledgling radio reporter, but it was the audiovisual medium that kept beckoning him.Forgoing film school, but instilled with a deep love of Tarkovsky and Fassbinder, he moved from his projectionist gig to jobs in distribution, post-production and production — finally landing at Atria, a French-based production company dedicated to African film. “I didn’t want to spend another four or five years in school,” he says. “My goal was to learn.
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