Thomas Balmès

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Thomas Balmès at the Sundance Film Festival 2014

Thomas Balmès (* 1969 in Paris ) is a French director , screenwriter , cameraman and film producer .

life and work

Thomas Balmès has been working as a filmmaker since 1992, primarily on internationally co-produced documentaries . In 1995 he worked as a cameraman and producer on Enrica Antonioni's film Fare un film è per me vivere , which documented Michelangelo Antonioni's collaboration with Wim Wenders on the episode film Beyond the Clouds .

In 1996 he produced his first directorial work, Bosnia Hotel , in which he reported on the deployment of Kenyan soldiers to the United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina . In Maharajah Burger (1996), Balmès examined the different views of Western Europeans and Indians on domestic cattle during the BSE outbreak in the mid-1990s, in the course of which animals were culled en masse in Europe , which caused horror in India at the religious veneration of the cow .

In Christ Comes to the Papuans (2001) Balmès documented the effects of Christian proselytizing attempts among the Huli people in Papua New Guinea .

In A Decent Factory (2004), Balmès followed an ethics officer from Nokia on a trip to the company's suppliers in China, where he examined cultural conflicts and the tension between ethics and profit. In his next work, Damages , Balmès filmed the processes in the law firm Koskoff, Koskoff & Bieder, which specializes in claims for damages that involve very high amounts in dispute.

Babys (2010) is dedicated to the stories of four infants from different regions of the world in their first year of life and thus also shows the diversity of cultures.

With Happiness , Thomas Balmès showed the eight-year-old Peyangki's everyday life in a small village in Bhutan that is to be connected to the electricity supply for the first time , giving the residents access to media such as television . In 2019, Balmès visited Peyangki again in Bhutan for Sing me a Song and observed how his life has changed through access to television, the Internet and smartphones .

Filmography (selection)

Director

  • 1996: Bosnia Hotel (documentary)
  • 1998: Maharajah Burger (documentary)
  • 2000: The Gospel According to the Papuans ( L'évangile selon les Papous , documentary)
  • 2000: Waiting for Jesus (documentary)
  • 2001: Christ Comes to the Papuans ( Le dernier des Papous , documentary)
  • 2004: Nokia: A Decent Factory (documentary)
  • 2005: Damages (documentary)
  • 2007: How Much Is Your Life Worth? (Documentary)
  • 2010: Babies ( Bébé (s) , documentary)
  • 2013: Happiness (documentary)
  • 2019: Sing me a Song (documentary)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Balmès, Thomas . In: Catalog Général of the Bibliothèque nationale de France , accessed on April 18, 2020.
  2. ↑ Biography . In: thomasbalmes.com, accessed April 18, 2020.
personal data
SURNAME Balmès, Thomas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French director, screenwriter, cameraman and film producer
DATE OF BIRTH 1969
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris