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Award Winner
A BOUT DE TRUFFE
Focus on this year’s TCM Short Film Award winner
W hen the ‘day job’ is all about whetting the audi-
ence appetite then no wonder there must be a residual urge actually to
create the meal itself – especially with a truffle flavour.
With a nod to Godard, A Bout De Truffe (The Truffle Hunter) - cinephiles will clearly appreciate the punny title -
is this year’s, the Eighth, winner of the
annual TCM (Turner Classic Movies) Short Film Award, beating off all-comers to the £5,000
first prize.
The 15-minute tragi-
comedy, shot in French, was described by one of
the judges, actor- writer Simon Pegg, as
“thoughtfully directed and beautifully com- posed. Funny, tragic
and wonderfully sly.” It’s the first fic-
tional work of 34- year-old Londoner Tom Tagholm, 34,
who previously made a short doc- umentary in 2005
called Tarzan Of Bounds Green, about a
one-off diving exhibition given over here by the late, great Johnny Weissmuller.
Tagholm’s ‘day job’ is looking after the creative department at Channel 4 where he, among oth-
ers, makes trailers and teasers for upcoming programmes and sea- sons across the network’s family of
channels. “Effectively, we are the ad agency for Channel Four,” he notes. “So,” he adds, “I shoot a fair bit
anyway. I was keen to do something longer – to stretch my legs, as it were. My film was an experiment in pacing something across a longer time frame.
“Is it intended as a ‘calling card’? I know shorts are often meant to be that but I never really made it neces- sarily with that in mind.”
Set in Périgord where perhaps the best-known truffles come from, the film was actually shot across five days on the Petworth estate in Sussex. The hap- less ‘truffle hunter’ of the title is played by Stephane Cornicard, while his porcine sidekick Carinne was affection- ately named after Tagholm’s girlfriend.
Apart from the obvious Gallic influence – Tagholm studied French at university and also lived in France for a year – the principal inspiration for the ‘look’ was, he says, the 17th Century Dutch landscapist Jakob Van Ruysdael, who had an exhibition in London shortly before shooting began.
“His canvases are quite golden, albeit a fairly bleak palette quite often featuring a figure wearing red. I, and my DP Luke Scott, a fantastic collabo- rator, was keen to get something of that mood and feeling. Luke shoots a lot on Fujifilm and they helped us out with this.” ■ QUENTIN FALK
A Bout De Truffe, currently doing the festival rounds, was originated on 35mm Fujicolor ETERNA 500T 8573 and ETERNA 250T 8553
Photo above:
Tom Tagholm (2nd left) with, l-r, awards host Andrew Collins, editor Tim Hardy, presenter Nik Powell and (front) Stephane Cornicard;
right: Tagholm on location; below: Cornicard and Carinne. (photos TCM)
Independents’ Day
S
year’s BIFAs, announced on November 28. Brick Lane was cited for Best Director (Sarah Gavron) and Best
Actress (Tannishtha Chatterjee) while It’s A Free World’s Kierston Wareing was nominated for Best Actress and Best Newcomer. ■
arah Gavron’s Brick Lane and Ken Loach’s It’s A Free World, both originated on Fujifilm, were nomi- nated for a brace of British Independent Film Awards at this
Photos l-r: Tannishtha Chatterjee, Sarah Gavron and Kierston Wareing
Fujifilm Motion Picture • The Magazine • Exposure • 35
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