PRESS KIT
PACIFIC BELL
a film by Sandrine Béchade
Fiction | 22 minutes | 2022
Pacific Bell
Language: Spanish with STE or STF
ratio 2:35 scope | Sound 5.1
DCP - ProRes - H264
shooting format: ARRI ALEXA Mini - 2k
country of action: Mexican & US Border
country of filming: United States (Mojave Desert)
#migrants #children #desert #brothers #phonebooth #mermaid
Specs
Logline
Two brothers attempt the perilous crossing of a strange desert, but just when they think they won't make it out alive, a phone booth appears.
Synopsis
Accompanied by his older brother Carlos, the young Adam is engaged in the perilous journey across the desert on the Mexican-American border. Abandoned by their guide who was supposed to help them, the brothers risk it all to reach their mother, who is waiting for them in Long Beach. Just as the desert is about to swallow them alive, a telephone booth appears like a mirage. “Pacific Bell” is a tale of two migrant children left to their own devices, told from the imaginative point of view of the youngest Adam, for whom the desert is like the bottom of the ocean and the ringing telephone that echoes in the immensity like the song of a mermaid.
Cast
Gadiel Luka Leza
Eric Vega
FESTIVALS: Awards and official selections
19th Gala Prends Ça Court - Montreal, Canada / march 2, 2023 - OUTPOST MTL Award
41st Rendez-vous Quebec Cinema - Blue Carpet Night - Montreal, Canada / march 3, 2023
27th L.A. Shorts International Film Festival - digital edition - Los Angeles, USA / july 23-30, 2023
27th Fantasia International Film Festival - Fantastic Week-ends of Quebec Cinema - Montreal, Canada / august 4, 2023 - MELS BEST
FILM Award, bronze
24th Off-Courts Trouville - Trouville-sur-mer, France / september 8, 2023
24th Calgary International Film Festival - Calgary, Canada / september 21, 2023
4th Aladerri International Film Festival - Chicago, USA / september 23, 2023
21st Tirana International Film Festival - Tirana, Albania / september 26, 2023
19th Cinema on the Bayou Film Festival - Louisiana, USA / january 27, 2024 - Narrative Short Special Jury Award
24th Kingston Canadian Film Festival - Ontario, Canada / march 2-3, 2024 - FINALIST Best Canadian Short
3rd Festival de films d’auteur de Val-Morin - Val-Morin, Canada / may 3, 2024 - Télé-Québec Award Laurentians Filmmaker
8th Les monteurs à l’affiche Festival - Montreal, Canada / september 28, 2024
7th Plurielles Festival - Compiège, France / october 12, 2024 - BEST SHORT FILM Award
20th FICPA Pasto International Film Festival - San Juan de Pasto, Colombia / october 18, 2024
50th Filmets Badalona Film Festival - Badalona, Spain / october 22, 2024
DIRECTOR - BIO
Born in France and immigrated to Canada at the age of 9, Sandrine Béchade is a director and screenwriter who signed documentaries before directing in 2018 her first short fiction film "Ange & Ovni" which won various awards around the world. Sandrine is interested in adolescence and the passage to adulthood, interiority, taboos and she likes to mix realism and fantasy. She graduated from Concordia University in Montreal in film production and from INIS (National Institute of Image and Sound) in screenwriting. She started her career as a camera assistant on many films and series. "Pacific Bell" is her third short narrative film.
DIRECTOR'S FILMOGRAPHY
Les Chrysalides | feature-lenght documentary | in production (2026)
Le Petit Brulé | feature-lenght documentary | en production (2026)
Liliane Colpron, un pas d'avance | TV docu - 60 min (2022)
Mon oncle Patof | TV docu - 60 min (202)
Biche & Louve (Doe & She-wolf) | fiction short film - 8 min (2020)
Ange & Ovni (Angel & Alien) | fiction short film - 20 min (2018)
Lise Watier, une vie à entreprendre | TV docu - 2 x 60 min (2015)
Team
script Sandrine Béchade & Julie Hétu
editor Amélie Labrèche
cinematographer Serge Desrosiers csc
sound Pierre-Jules Audet & Luc Boudrias
original music Erika Angell & Simon Angell (Thus Owls)
producer Serge Desrosiers
Vital Productions
News
PACIFIC BELL is co-written by Sandrine Béchade and novelist Julie Hétu based on a story inspired by her 2018 book of the same title. Beyond the desire to talk about a current event, the two screenwriters wanted to talk about it with poetry. The mythical cabin of the Mojave Desert and the tale of Andersen's The Little Mermaid were chosen to create a story set in a desert where two young migrant brothers drown and whose brotherly relationship is moving. The film plunges the spectator into a spellbinding universe that blends cruel reality with oceanic poetry.
articles :
https://www.lapresse.ca/cinema/2023-02-22/41es-rendez-vous-quebec-cinema/cinq-suggestions.php