Producer Pierre-Olivier Bardet, Honored at Ji.hlava, Relishes Filmmakers Who Go Their Own Way
variety.comWill Tizard Contributor Producer Pierre-Olivier Bardet has become a hero to filmmakers who rock the boat – feature and documentary revolutionaries who work in ways that he says are “completely unique,” as he puts it: Albert Serra, Frederick Wiseman, Wang Bing and Alexandr Sokurov.
And it’s hard to imagine anyone else who would have agreed to produce an English version of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute,” directed by Kenneth Branagh (after Francis Ford Coppola and several luminaries declined the project), set in World War I.
But for Bardet, the fascination of working with those who reject the usual conventions of filmmaking is what drives him – which is a key reason he was honored at this year’s Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival for his contribution to cinema by the Czech producers association.
Bardet’s new film with Serra, focused on the rituals of bullfighting in Spain, is likely to push boundaries still further, he says. “I did two films with him, ‘Liberte’ and ‘Pacifiction’ and we are currently working on a third one together, which would be his sixth film, which is called ‘Tardes de Soledad.’” “It’s a kind of documentary, a la Serra style,” he says with an ironic grin. “He’s inventing a certain way of cinema.
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