FILMOGRAPHY

A ZEN TALE

Magdalena Solé — writer, director, producer

An ancient and humorous Buddhist tale of how seeing can be far from knowing brought to life by the actor Kim Chan playing all three monks in the tale.

What is reality when three people perceive the same event so differently?

  • Genre: Comedy
  • Length: 11 minutes
  • Format: 35mm
  • Aspect Ratio: 1:85 (widescreen)
  • Sound: Dolby SR

Deep in a Chinese forest, a pair of elderly monks are visited at their monastery by an equally aged mendicant, who asks to challenge one of them to a debate so as to be able to spend the night. This was the age-old custom at Zen temples. They agree to a wordless challenge. Symbolic gestures, and colossal religious misunderstandings ensue. A playful piece with some great cinematography and atmosphere, A Zen tale is most noteworthy for the fact that all three of its characters are played by the same actor. In the vein that reality is what we perceive, the exotic Chinese forest was actually shot in a Manhattan backyard.

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Man on Wire

Magdalena Solé— Unit Production Manager

The film chronicles Philippe Petit's 1974 high-wire walk between the Twin Towers of New York's World Trade Center.

It was filmed in 2007, the story of a man named Phillip Petit who had crossed the Twin Towers in 1974 balancing on a wire. We filmed in the ruins of the fallen World Trade Centers, and had to bring back a time in 1974, when the towers were just being built.

The film "Man on Wire" is an excellent example of art's ability to heal. Filmed six years after the world trade center’s twin towers fell, at a time no New Yorker and likely most of the rest of the world, could not look at the sky line of lower Manhattan without reliving that day, that sadness, that suffering. Yet, "Man on Wire" gave all of us a wonderful respite to the memory of 9-11 by gifting a look at that empty downtown skyline and seeing Philippe Petit 415 meters in the air walking between the towers. The film became a collective relief.

In February 2009, the film won the BAFTA for Outstanding British Film, the Independent Spirit Awards, and the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.