Introducing the nominees for the 1st AFC Awards

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY FOR A FICTION FEATURE FILM

- Yves Cape, AFC, for Sundown, by Michel Franco
Born in 1960, in Belgium, to a German-Hungarian mother and a Belgian-American father. After completing a normal education, he decided on his profession during a trip to the United States. Once he returned to Brussels, he began studying photography at the “Ateliers 75” and in 1982, he received the Dumeunier Award recognizing young portrait photographers. Then, he studied cinema at the INSAS. Since, he has worked with directors Bruno Dumont, Patrice Chéreau, Guillaume Nicloux, Michel Franco, Cédric Kahn, Claire Denis , Emmanuelle Bercot, Emily Atef, and others.
- Michał Dymek, PSC, for EO, by Jerzy Skolimowski
Born in 1990, in Warsaw, Michał Dymek is a Polish cinematographer who graduated from the Łódź film school in 2017. Skolimowski’s film won the Jury Prize at Cannes in 2022 and he was nominated for an Oscar in 2023 for Best Foreign Film. It was also screened out-of-competition at the Camerimage festival in 2022.
Read or reread the interview with Michał Dymek he gave on that occasion.
- Florian Hoffmeister, BSC, for Tár, by Todd Field
Born in 1970 in West Germany, he studied cinema at the German Film and Television Academy in Berlin (Deutsche Film und Fernsehakademie Berlin, DFFB). He initially worked on a number of made-for-TV movies and television series for German broadcasters, and he considers that he owes the takeoff of his career to director and producer Antonia Bird (The Hamburg Cell, in 2004). In 2012-2013, he was the first cinematographer to win an Emmy Award, a Bafta Award, and an ASC Award for the same program : the mini-series “Great Expectations” directed by Brian Kirk. In 2014, Variety magazine ranked him as one of their ten cinematographers to watch. He has worked on feature films with directors such as Terrence Davies (The Deep Blue Sea, A Quiet Passion), David Koepp (Mortdecai), Edward Berger, Gavin Hood, Scott Cooper, and others.
His work on Tár garnered him an Oscar nomination for cinematography in 2023.
Read or reread the summary, in french, of a Q&A session with Florian Hoffmeister that was held as part of the Camerimage Festival in 2022 at which Tár was in official competition.
- Joe Saade, for Joyland, by Saim Sadiq
Joe Saade is a Lebanese cinematographer who works on fictions, documentaries and advertisements. These projects, and his interest in architecture, have brought him around the globe. Joyland won the Jury Prize in the Un Certain Regard competition at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.
- Frank van den Eeden, NSC, SBC, for Close, by Lukas Dhont
Born in 1971, Frank van den Eeden is a Dutch cinematographer, who graduated with a master’s degree in visual arts from the Sint-Lukas film school in Brussels. He has often worked with director Lukas Dhont (Close, Girl), Fien Troch (Someone Else’s Happiness, The Unspoken, Home, Kid) and Tim Mielants (Patrick, The Terror, Small Things Like These). In 2014, his contribution to Flemish cinema was recognized by the prestigious “Culture Award of Flanders for Film”. We remind you that Close won the Grand Prize at the 75th Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for an Oscar in 2023 in the category Best Foreign Film. Additionally, his work on Animals, by Nabil Ben Yadir, earned him a spot in competition for the Golden Frog award at the Camerimage festival in 2021.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY FOR A SERIES (episode, pilot or mini-series) :

- Denis Lenoir, AFC, ASC, ASK and Yorick Le Saux, for "Irma Vep" (S.1, Ep.7 "The Spectre") by Olivier Assayas
Denis Lenoir spent so much time at the Cinémathèque française that he had to give up his medical studies and, deciding to make a profession out of his passion, he enrolled at the École de Vaugirard in Paris. He also took classes in art history at the École du Louvre. After his graduation, he worked for a spell as an assistant operator with Bernard Lutic and Ricardo Aronovich. He became a Director of Photography at the age of 27 and since then, he has shot over 45 feature films and a great many pilots, advertising films, and music videos. A co-founder of the French Cinematographers’ Association (AFC), he is also the author of a book on John Cassavetes. He has worked with directors such as Patrice Leconte, Christian Vincent, Rolf De Heer, Olivier Assayas, Jon Avnet, Philippe Claudel, Mia Hansen-Løve, etc.
- Yorick Le Saux, born in 1968, graduated from La Fémis in 1994. Since then, he has worked with directors Olivier Assayas, Xavier Giannoli, Luca Guadagnino, Jim Jarmusch, François Ozon, Claire Denis, Greta Gerwig, and others.
- Jaime Reynoso, AMC, for "Extrapolation" (S.1, Ep.5 "2059 Part II, Nightbirds") by Richie Mehta
Born in Mexico City in 1970, he was interested in photography from a young age and became a camera intern in 1991 on the shooting of Like Water for Chocolate by Alfonso Arau (cinematography Emmanuel Lubezki). After earning an MFA at the American Film Institute, he began to work on many music videos, films and TV series. He has recently worked for Netflix (Bloodline), TNT, HBO and AppleTV+ (“Extrapolation”).
- Wim Vanswijgenhoven, SBC, for "1985" (S.1, Ep.2 "Donnant-donnant"), by Wouter Bouvijn
Wim Vanswijgenhoven was born in 1984 at Saint-Trond, in Belgique. After studying electronics in high school, he chose to pursue his interest in photography and studied visuals/sound/editing at the RITCS School of Arts at the Erasmus University of Applied Sciences of Brussels. He began working in advertising and shot short films with a childhood friend, Deben Vandam, including The Road of All Flesh which opened the door to a feature film, Sprakeloos, in 2017, by Hilde Van Mieghem. He worked with Wouter Bouvijn on five episodes of the series “Red Light” in 2020 and then went on to work on the series “1985” on the Brabant Killers, one of the great tragedies and mysteries of contemporary Belgian history.
- Fabian Wagner, ASC, BSC, for "House of the Dragon" (Pilote "The Heirs of the Dragon"), by Miguel Sapochnik
Fabian Wagner was born in 1978, in Munich. He studied filmmaking at Northern Film School, in Leeds, England and began by shooting many music videos and short films, before working on TV shows for the BBC and ITV. His first feature film as cinematographer dates back to 2015, The Legend of Barney Thomson, by Robert Carlyle. He was the cinematographer for several episodes of “Game of Thrones”, “The Crown” and “Sherlock”. He is also responsible for the cinematography of feature films Justice League (Zack Snyder), Overlord (Julius Avery) and Victor Frankenstein (Paul McGuigan).

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY FOR A DOCUMENTARY :

- Paul Guilhaume, AFC, for Paradis, by Alexander Abaturov
After earning bachelor’s degrees in philosophy and filmmaking at the Sorbonne, he enrolled at La Fémis (class of 2014). His career as a cinematographer took off quickly thanks to the trust Sébastien Lifshitz placed in him with the documentary Les Vies de Thérèse in 2017, followed by Adolescentes in 2019. Simultaneously, he got started in fiction films with director Léa Mysius (Ava) whom he met as a fellow student at La Fémis. He then worked with Jacques Audiard on “The Bureau” (S5, Ep. 9 & 10) and Les Olympiades in 2021.
- Boris Lévy, for The Wild One, byTessa Louise-Salomé
Boris Lévy was born in Paris and has been working as a cinematographer since completing a professional degree in Audiovisual and Images from Boulogne-Billancourt in 2008. Ever since the start of his career, he has cultivated a strong relationship with video installations, sound creation, art films and travel, particularly in Africa. In 2015, he began working with his brother, director Raphaël Lévy, and this led to a number of documentaries and advertising films that revealed their shared desire for graphic images, mostly shot abroad. His work bears the stamp of highly varied cinematographic experiences. Boris works regularly with author and director Noé Debré, and together they explore new genres in each of his films, each of which calls into question the proper cinematographic grammar and gesture. Over a period of three years, Boris Lévy worked with director Tessa Louise-Salomé to shoot The Wild One, a documentary that stands out because of its form but also its moving story, that of Jack Garfein. In particular, Lévy used many optical devices to create visual bridges between the different regimes of images that populate the film. The Wild One won the award for Best Cinematography at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2022.
Read or reread an interview conducted, in french, by Caroline Champetier, AFC.
- Pierre-Hubert Martin, for L(oo)ping, by Louise Narboni
Born in Nantes in 1984, Pierre-Hubert Martin is a French cinematographer. He began his career in 2011 as an assistant operator alongside Irina Lubtchansky, AFC, on films by Arnaud Desplechin, Valérie Donzelli and Rabah Ameur Zaimeche. In 2019, his collaboration with director Jean-Paul Civeyrac on the film Mes Provinciales marked the start of his career as a cinematographic cinematographer. Later on, he worked with directors such as Philippe Petit, Louise Narboni and, more recently, Manele Labidi. In 2021, he worked with Rabah Ameur Zameiche and directed the photography on the film The Temple Woods Gang. In parallel to his work as a cinematographer, he also directed his first documentary feature in 2020, produced and distributed by Pathé, on the Leonardo da Vinci show at the Louvre.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY FOR A FIRST OR SECOND FICTION FEATURE FILM BY A CINEMATOGRAPHER RESIDING IN FRANCE :

- Xavier Dolléans, AFC, for Marinette, by Virginie Verrier
Passionate about science and technology from an early age, he tinkered around with all kinds of electronics in his garage : he was first attracted by the world of animatronics, special effects and pyrotechnics. At the age of 16, he made contact with special effects specialists and did a directorial internship on a short film, and then set to work on film sets. He studied filmmaking at Université Paris 7, completed training on 35mm at the ENS Louis-Lumière, and began a career as a cinematographer on music videos, short films, and advertisements. Simultaneously, he worked as a second camera assistant and a lighting balloon technician on crews of feature films and television series, refining his eye alongside great cinematographers such as Robert Richardson, ASC (Hugo) and Darius Khondji, AFC, ASC (Midnight in Paris). He recently signed off on the cinematography on TV series such as “Germinal” and “Mrs. Davis”.
- Noémie Gillot, for Magnificat, by Virginie Sauveur
After graduating from La Fémis, she worked as an assistant camera and then as a cinematographer on many and varied projects, including fictions and documentaries, music videos, advertisements and art films. She has shot over twenty short films. She has also been focus-puller to cinematographer Eric Gautier, AFC, for the film A Folk Horror Tale, for the Maison Margiela Collection, designed by John Galliano and directed by Olivier Dahan.
- Benoît Jaoul, for Chien de la casse, by Jean-Baptiste Durand
“I was born and raised in Narbonne in the South of France. After highschool, I did a professional degree in audiovisual technology with a specialization in images. Once I graduated, I went up to Paris to work as an assistant camera on features, made-for-TV movies, and series. Between two films, I had my first experience as a cinematographer on short films and music videos. In 2021, I signed off on the photography of my first feature film, Chien de la casse, directed by Jean-Baptiste Durand.”
- Pierre-Hubert Martin, for Une femme de notre temps, by Jean-Paul Civeyrac
See the short biography above in the category “Best cinematography for a documentary”.