How do we overcome the heartbreaks, sorrows and traumas we endure or witness, and come out whole?
SYNOPSIS
In TURBULENCE, award-winning filmmaker Anne Aghion brings us on her decades-long global odyssey to overcome loss. Through a series of tender, honest and visually stunning cinematic letters to the mother she lost at age ten and barely remembers, she grapples with the long-ignored effect of this death, the suppressed memories of her father’s life during the Holocaust, and a career as a filmmaker spent avoiding her own grief by giving voice to people who’ve survived extreme poverty and genocide. With a collage of home movies, outtakes from her previous films and original animated artwork embedded in grandiose footage of vast landscapes that take us to India, France, Rwanda, Antarctica and New York, Anne Aghion asks a question we all face : How do we live past the heartbreaks, sorrows and traumas we endure or witness and come out whole?
Director Statement
TURBULENCE is a film-memoir, though really, it is a multi-layered tale that navigates the treacherous cross-currents of sorrow and intergenerational trauma to ultimately recount how the presence of absence can become a place to be filled by love.
It is a story about how our losses—of loved ones, of family, of home—and bearing witness to the pain and grief of others, affect our sense of place in the world. And, it is about how these invisible forces found expression in my films.
Over the years making this film, I kept wondering where the urge to keep going came from. The truth is, at the core of TURBULENCE is a question we all face: How do we live past the heartbreaks, sorrows and traumas we endure or witness and come out whole?
Supporter Statement
“Stunningly beautiful […], an ode to life, and the creation of happiness.” – Gilles Kepel, Les Échos
ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)
Director Anne Aghion
Anne Aghion has been praised as a filmmaker of poetic vision whose films, in the words of one critic, “pull us deep into the social fabric” of the places she covers.
She just completed her new film, TURBULENCE, a first-person documentary produced in association with ARTE La Lucarne’s auteur strand, which the French press called “stunningly beautiful.” She gained international renown for THE GACACA SERIES (pr. ga-CHA-cha), 4 films on post-genocide justice and social reconstruction in Rwanda: MY NEIGHBOR MY KILLER, premiered in Official Selection at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival and went on to screen at over 100 festivals worldwide. Other films in the series won an Emmy and a UNESCO Fellini Prize.
The 2007 feature ICE PEOPLE explores the physical, emotional and spiritual adventure of living and conducting science in Antarctica. It was produced by ARTE France & ITVS Int’l in association with Sundance Channel. In 1996, her first film SE LE MOVIÓ EL PISO (The Earth Moved Under Him), won a prize at the Havana Film Festival.
Aghion earned a Guggenheim Fellowship & a Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship to India. Other honors include grants from the French CNC, the Soros & Sundance Institute Documentary Funds, Jewish Story Partners, etc.
Aghion has served as a juror for L’Oeil d’Or in Cannes, IDFA, IDA, among others.
She lives between New York and France.
Throughout her extensive career as a writer and producer, Cynthia Kane has been dedicated to creating impactful documentaries that resonate globally. Co-creator of Sundance Channel's DOCday, Cynthia Kane played a pivotal role in bringing acclaimed documentary daylong series (“Mondays: 24 hours of Documentaries”) to U.S. television, notably Jean-Xavier de Lestrade and Denis Poncet’s award-winning masterpiece, THE STAIRCASE (2006 Peabody, Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Awards). While there, she also brought Anne Aghion’s first two films in the Gacaca Series to Sundance Channel, one of which earned one of Sundance Channel’s first Emmys. During her tenure at ITVS, Cynthia Kane shepherded 135+ international and U.S. co-productions for public media – including Anne Aghion's ICE PEOPLE – contributing to the enrichment of the documentary landscape. At Al Jazeera America, her impact extended further as she commissioned noteworthy documentaries and series, including the late Albert Maysles’ final work, IN TRANSIT, the duPont Award-winning series, Kartemquin Films’ HARD EARNED, and many more. Kane was critical in launching the channel and served as Senior Commissioning Producer in the Documentary Unit until its closure in 2016. Cynthia Kane's recent filmography showcases her commitment to thought-provoking storytelling. Notable productions include CALL ME DANCER (2023, ZDF ARTE/yes docu), directed by Leslie Shampaine and Pip Gilmour; Sabine Krayenbühl and Zeva Oelbaum’s OBSESSED WITH LIGHT (2023); and Raj Patel and Zak Piper’s THE ANTS AND THE GRASSHOPPER (2021). Cynthia Kane currently freelances and serves as a creative consultant for, among others, Women Make Movies’ Production Assistance Program.
A multi-hat professional working at the crossroads of social innovation, culture and media, Anita Kirpalani worked with Anne Aghion in New York as Associate Producer for several years at the onset of what would become TURBULENCE. Over the years, she remained involved, recently re-engaging more formally to help shepherd the film’s distribution. She started her career as the UN representative for the International Federation for Human Rights. Based out of New York, she also worked as a reporter/researcher for Newsweek International and a correspondent for Youphil, the first French web publication dedicated to social innovation. She moved back to France to manage a large-scale European multi-disciplinary cultural and political event spearheaded by the French Mission du Centenaire, which took place in Sarajevo in 2014 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of WWI. She then became Director of Development and Partnerships for leading French non-profit Article 1, which focuses on creating equal opportunity in the fields of education and professional development. Recently, Anita Kirpalani was at Epic, a global foundation which empowers and protects children, youth and our planet. She was rapidly promoted from Director France to Managing Director Europe and Chief Operating Officer. In addition to her work with Anne Aghion, she does operational strategy consulting in the non-profit sector in Europe, and creative consulting with Kaimera Productions, a live performance organization, and others. Half-Indian, half-French, Anita Kirpalani lives in Paris. She holds a Master of International Affairs from Columbia University and a Master of Public Affairs from Sciences Po Paris.
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