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Letters to Max

1 h 43, 2014
︎︎︎ PRESS KIT • TEASER • MUBI

Paris, June 29th 2012
Dear Max,
Are you there?
Éric

Abkhazia is something of a paradox: a country that exists, in the physical sense of the word (a territory with borders, a government, a flag and a language), yet it has no legal existence because for almost twenty years it was not recognized by any other nation state. Which is why Éric Baudelaire’s letter to his friend Maxim Gvinjia, the former Foreign Minister of Abkhazia, was something of a message in a bottle thrown at sea. But the letter arrived, and somehow fiction penetrated the real.

Thus began a letter writing campaign, 74 letters sent over 74 days, a script for a voiceover to a film in which Max becomes the narrator. The film is structured by this exchange: letters that should not have arrived and yet somehow reached Max, his recorded responses, and images that Éric Baudelaire filmed in Abkhazia once their correspondence ended.
With
Maxime Gvindjia
A film by
Éric Baudelaire
Image
Éric Baudelaire
Sound
Juliette Navis
Jean Holtzmann
Julien Bonvicini

Editing
Éric Baudelaire
Laure Vermeersch
Graphic Design
Jean-Marie Courant
Artistic collaboration
Dov Lynch
Laure Vermeersch
Sergueï Agumaa
Production
Poulet-Malassis Films・Éric Baudelaire
With support from
Bétonsalon
Bergen Kunsthall
Région Île-de-France
Cnap・Image/Mouvement
UC Berkeley Art Museum・Pacific Film Archive
DISTRIBUTION
LUX (UK)
Cinema Guild (USA)
DCP
1:1.85
5.1 sound
English and Russian with English/French subtitles
FESTIVALS
FIDMarseille
TIFF Wavelengths
New York Film Festival
BFI
RIDM, Editing Prize
DocLisboa, Special Jury Prize
Entrevues Belfort Film Festival
Porto/Post/Doc, Grand Prize
CPH:DOX
IFFR
Punto de Vista Navarra
BAFICI, Best Feature Film Prize
REVIEWS
Letters to Max, Léo Goldsmith, Cinema Scope 61, 2014

Letters to Max: Marseille Review, Neil Young, Hollywood Reporter, July 2014

Found Letters and Lost Images, Maria Moseng, Wuxia, January 2014
MORE RESOURCES
Letters to Max, Poulet-Malassis Press, 2014





Poulet-Malassis Films 
c/o Éric Baudelaire studio
41 bis quai de la Loire, Atelier 304
75019 Paris FRANCE

info @ pouletmalassis . com