Thomas Balmès
FILM: Damages

Film

Saturday, November 14, 2009
2:00PM

 

Related Person

Keith Brown


 

FILM: Damages, (2006). Film screening followed by Q&A with director Thomas Balmès. Insurance adjusters live among death. This film invites audiences to reflect on contemporary US culture as it follows the process of calculating the value a jury would assign the deceased in a wrongful-death case and gauging how to persuade survivors to settle for less. 

Thomas Balmès studied at the Institut Supérieur d’Etudes Cinématographiques (ISEC), then became involved in the production of documentaries for various TV channels both as an independent producer and cinematographer. He set up his own production companies, TBC Productions and Margot Films in 1992. He directed his first film, Bosnia Hotel, in 1996, followed by Maharajah Burger, Mad Cows, Holy Cows in 1998. The Gospel According to the Papuans and Waiting for Jesus - like his former films- deal with the hegemony of the western culture, religion and values, this time through the evangelization of a tribe in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. His last film, A Decent Factory, deals again with globalisation but from a global company point of view, Nokia, and tries to answer to the question: “Is it possible to combine Capitalism and morality?.”


Location: Joukowsky Forum.