BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD Director: Benh Zeitlin Location: Southern Louisiana, USA This tale of six-year-old girl “Hushpuppy,” living with her father at the end of the world (aka a bayou community cut off from the world by a levee). This tale of rusted out shacks, shrimp, catfish, natural disasters and semi-wild animals won the Sundance Film Festival’s top prize this year with non-actors in the lead roles, and also screened as part of the Un Certain Regard programming at Cannes. Although the film tries not to tie the narrative world to a particular location, this is very much a southern Louisiana-bred tale, the shoot taking place southwest of New Orleans, “where the road ends and the Gulf begins.” The 40-day shoot traversed the bayous of Houma, Bourg, Pointe-Aux-Chenes and Montegut, as well as Mandeville and Slidell. Principal photography began the day of the BP oil spill about a hundred miles from production headquarters.
80 FRAMES
15