Helene Bienvenu and Nora Mandray are the two Frenchies behind this blog.
They met while doing their undergraduate degrees at the Paris Institute of Political Studies, where they shared a passion for the fascinating intricacies of the Polish language. They bonded in Cracow, Poland, during a Summer language program and became known as “the kokos.”
After their graduation, both fluent in Polish after a year in Poland, they decided to keep studying as a means of traveling.
After 6 months in Thailand, Helene moved to Hungary to work as a photojournalist and pursue her Hungarian studies. She has worked as a correspondent and travel-writer for French-speaking publications such as Elle Belgium or La Croix and wrote several travel-guides. Nora left for the U.S, to study filmmaking at UCLA as a Fulbright scholar. Before that, they spent some time filming in Paris, Liverpool, Budapest and Warsaw.
They last saw each other in July 2009 in Walbrzych, a small Silesian town in Poland, near the Czech and German borders. There they shot their first real documentary together.
For the past two years, they have been working together to make a film about urban utopia – a pet project of theirs ever since they set foot in the “post-communist” countries. In July 2009, Helene and Nora got a grant from the city of Paris for their ‘utopia around the world’ project, followed shortly thereafter by an Arthur K. Peters Memorial Travel Grant 2010. Finally, in April 2011, the two of them were awarded a development grant from the prestigious French Film Institute (Centre National de la Cinématographie) to write and direct a documentary about Detroit.
For more info about each of us, please visit our respective websites and don’t hesitate to contact us!
Helene’s profesionnal travel blog: http://planeteregards.wordpress.com/
Nora’s portfolio: http://noramandrayfilms.tumblr.com/
In July, Jason Kohl joined our team as a marketing & distribution consultant for “Detroit je t’aime.”
[...] Detroit, je t'aime 2 Frenchies in the D | 2 Françaises à Détroit AboutContact [...]
[...] Detroit, je t'aime 2 Frenchies in the D | 2 Françaises à Détroit AboutContact [...]
[...] announced it, I’m now in Detroit, Michigan (USA). I moved there two months ago to work on a transmedia documentary project about “The D”, better known as Motor City. If everything goes well, I’m going to [...]
Sounds like a really interesting project. Where are you guys filming, and what themes is the documentary focusing on concerning the city of Detroit?
Dear Ben! Thank you so much for your comment, we’ll be happy to reply by email! Shall we use the one that appear here on wordpress?