Guillaume Giovanetti
The French-Turkish couple Çağla Zencirci & Guillaume Giovanetti have been co-directing films and also their lives, since 2004. After several short films (selected in Berlin, Locarno, Clermont-Ferrand…) and a feature film, Noor (Pakistan, 2012 / Cannes Acid), Sibel, their second feature film, premiered in international competition at Locarno in 2018, where it received three awards. The film was then selected for around a hundred festivals and received more than 40 awards. It was successfully released in cinemas in 2019 around the world (France, Turkey, Germany, the United States…), attracting more than 200,000 viewers. A finalist for the Golden Globes and European Film Awards, the film was purchased by Canal+, Ciné+, OCS and Arte in France, and by HBO in Europe.
The duo came to Groupe Ouest for the development of their fourth feature film, Chen & Gan, set on an island in the Bosphorus and in a Romani neighbourhood of Istanbul.
A travaillé avec...
I think that, having explored every colour of the rainbow, we've arrived at something quite solid, and strong, that we were able to share. We realise that behind us there is an army of people who are in the same frame of mind as us, and who are there to move forward with our project... and we with theirs... It creates camaraderie, in fact.
Auteur-réalisateur
Chen & Gan
Sélection Annuelle 2021
Istanbul, present day. Roman, a 35-year-old Romani leader, marries off his 16-year-old sister Elmas in order to save his community from the imminent destruction of their neighbourhood. But Elmas flees her marriage and, guided by a mysterious fog, ends up in a women’s shelter on an island in the Bosphorus, run by Anka, 32, an austere and secretive woman.
This is how Roman and Anka’s paths cross once again—each recognizing their youthful love… A love that was unique and free, unbound by tradition, yet interrupted mid-flight by an irreparable mutual betrayal. Or at least, that’s what they believed…
Shaken by revelations from the past and encouraged by omens echoing the Indian legend of Chen & Gan—a couple who overcame every obstacle to found the “Chen-Gan” people, later becoming the “Tziganes”—Roman and Anka must face the question : can they transcend their limits and allow their love to rise again from its ashes?
A screenplay by Çağla Zencirci, Guillaume Giovanetti and Delphine Agut (co-screenwriter).