AUTHORS’ BIOGRAPHY & FILMOGRAPHY

François-Xavier Destors
François-Xavier Destors’s films explore the invisible side of mass crimes. His first feature-length documentary, Rwanda, la surface de réparation (86′, 2014) tells the story of this popular genocide through the social, political and cultural role of sport in Rwanda. Author of several historical documentaries (Les voix de Srebrenica, Paris une histoire capitale, Les Années 68…), he shot in the polar city of Norilsk, a former gulag transformed into a closed city forbidden to foreigners and controlled with an iron fist by the world’s leading producer of copper and nickel. Norilsk, l’étreinte de glace (2018) is a cinematic exploration of our ability to adapt to and survive the collective history of our industrial societies. François-Xavier Destors continues his cinematic exploration of sacrificed territories with Toxicily (2023) by lifting the veil on an ecocide at the gates of Europe.

Alfonso Pinto
Alfonso Pinto is a geographer and researcher. After a course of studies in cinema and visual cultures and later in history and geography, in 2016 he defended a doctoral thesis at the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon (France) on urban imaginaries in disaster cinema. From 2018 to 2022, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the École Urbaine de Lyon directing the images hub. His research invests the field of relations between human and social sciences and audiovisual practices and the topic of environmental and industrial catastrophes. He is the author of numerous scientific and popular publications and in 2021 he published the essay The Lighter of the Anthropocene. A brief history of industrial disaster. The film Toxicily is his first film experience.

CREDITS

Authors Alfonso Pinto, François-Xavier Destors
Direction François-Xavier Destors
Photography Jean-Gabriel Leynaud 
Editing Matthieu Augustin
Music Jorge Arriagada, Danilo Romancino
Sound Sebastiano Caceffo
Sound editing Martin Dezelscaux
Producers Christilla Huillard-Kann, Chiara Andrich, Andrea Mura
Heads of production Corinne Delpech, Chiara Andrich 
Production assistants Clarisse Belondrarde, Mavi Calcinotto, Gaia Vianello 
Production company Elda Productions
Co-production Ginko Films

WITH THE SUPPORT OF
Eurimages, Centre National Du Cinema Et De L’image Animée, Dgca Del Mic, Region Hauts-De-France, Sicilia Film Commission, Rai Cinema, Bip Tv, Rsi Radio Televisione Svizzera, Procirep-Angoa, Cricd, Ecole Urbaine De Lyon

PRODUCER’S BIOGRAPHY & FILMOGRAPHY

Christilla Huillard-Kann
Christilla Huillard-Kann is the producer and co-founder of Elda Productions, a French production company of documentaries. Previously she served as the Deputy Director of New Medias and was in charge of editorial at Radio France, the major French Public Radio Station. She was the commissioning editor at ARTE FRANCE (documentaries department), producer and Head of documentary department at Image et Cie, a French production company (Lagardère Group) and journalist at France Inter, the major French Public Radio channel. Christilla also worked as a demographer at UNESCO and is co-founder of “l’air numérique”, an out-of-competition selection of digital works of the European First Film festival “Premiers Plans”. She holds a M. Philo in Demographics and Econometrics at SciencesPo and an MSc in Economics at the Institute for the Study of Economic and Social Development.

Chiara Andrich
(Treviso 1982) She is an author and editor of documentary films. In 2013, she co-directed the documentary “Bring the sun home”(premiered at Locarno Film Festival) with Giovanni Pellegrini and in 2015 “Ali di tela” (premiered at Italian Film Festival de Annecy). She edited, selected films at the international festivals: “Soledad “by Ricardo Iscar, Tobia Scarpa “L’anima segreta delle cose” by Elia Romanelli, “Internat” by Maurilio Mangano, “Aquagranda crescendo” by Giovanni Pellegrini. She has been the artistic director at the Sole Luna Doc Film Festival since 2014.

Andrea Mura
(Cagliari, 1980) He directed various documentary films, short films, participating in international festivals. His work creates new perspectives and is inspired by social traditions that are contaminated by contemporary everyday life. He also conducts audiovisual language training activities through workshops in schools, at SPRAR centers and associations that deal with mental and social distress. He has been the creative director at the Sole Luna Doc Film Festival in Palermo and Treviso since 2014.

PRODUCTION COMPANY

ELDA° productions is a production company created in 2015 by Christilla Huillard-Kann and Corinne Delpech in France; they both have a 20 years experience in cinema/TV/web production, share the same taste for innovation and the same involvement in the media and cultural sphere. ELDA° produces documentaries, original fiction series for TV and animated films as well as digital programs. Christilla and Corinne often and successfully worked with French and European coproducers, partners distributors, administrations (CNC, EEC Media Plan, Regional aid funds, Tax shelters systems, private foundations).

Elda Productions
France
www.eldaproductions.com
contact@eldaproductions.com

CO-PRODUCTION COMPANY

Ginko Film is a film and audiovisual production company based in Venice with a special focus on documentary cinema. The Ginko tree, an incredibly resistant plant that was able to survive the extinction of the dinosaurs and the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, inspires the name of the company. Ginko Film suggests that its films are like miniature Ginko trees, able to inspire us and resist the passing of time.

Ginko Films
Italy
www.ginkofilm.it
info@ginkofilm.it