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"While he mused on the effect of the flowing sands, he was seized from time to time by hallucinations in which he himself began to move with the flow." -Kobo Abe Liminal zones. Floating particles. Fire, water, earth, air. Voices of fictional characters: sometimes suggestive, sometimes strict, leading the viewer away from the here and now. Who`s talking? The relationship between the hypnotized subject and the hypnotist is mirrored in the spectator`s relationship to the screen.

CHRISTOPH GIRARDET was born in Langenhagen, Germany, in 1966. He studied Fine Arts at the Braunschweig School of Art (Master´s degree in 1994). Since 1989 he has produced video tapes, video installations and films, some of them in collaboration with Volker Schreiner beginning in 1994 and as of 1999 with Matthias Müller. He was awarded a stipend for the International Studio and Curatorial Program in New York (2000) and the Villa Massimo stipend in Rome (2004). He lives and works in Hanover. MATTHIAS MÜLLER was born in Bielefeld, Germany in 1961. Müller is an artist working in film, video and photography. He is based in Bielefeld and Cologne, Germany. Studied Arts and German Literature at Bielefeld University and Fine Arts at HBK Braunschweig. Master’s degree. Since 2003, Professor in Experimental Film at Academy of Media Arts, KHM, Cologne. Müller organized numerous avant-garde film events such as the "Found Footage Film Festival" (1996 & 1999) and the first German festival of autobiographical films "Ich etc." (1998) and various touring programs. With his films and videos he has taken part in major film festivals worldwide, including the festivals at Cannes, Venice, Berlin and Rotterdam. His work has also been featured in several group and solo exhibitions. His films and videos are part of the collections of institutions such as Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, Museu d’Art Contemporani, Barcelona, Nederlands Film Museum, Amsterdam, Australian Centre For The Moving Image, Melbourne, Kunsthalle Bielefeld, the Goetz Collection, Munich, the collection of Isabelle and Jean-Conrad Lemaître, London, and Tate Modern, London.

A broken bottleneck lies on the ground. An analogue telephone with a blank dial plate. The hero of the film, Jean-Louis Trintignant, in younger years – in older years. A man huddled on an elevator floor. Skewered butterflies. He is all alone in the world. The external is sealed off. The internal barricaded. He shifts between times. His focus is always trained on the other. Is he wanted, condemned, persecuted? The man whom we observe from the rear, is only able to see his back in the mirror. His face cannot be recognised. All the actions and movements, all the seeking and striving, all the alterations and associations revolve around the view and excerpt from “La reproduction interdite”, painted by Belgian surrealist René Magritte in 1937. The mirror axis of the film, and yet, and simply for that reason, one becomes the other. The other becomes many. “personne – that is somebody and nobody and anyone. That is us in the course of time. Persistently, in vain. The self is the need for permanent self-assertion”.

Christoph Girardet & Matthias Müller are directors, known for Cut (2013), Contre-jour (2009) and Personne (2016).

A crowd dances to the sound of a music that is not heard played by a band that is not seen. What is left is the sound of the bodies in movement, the image of a moving order. The Straight Edge is an experiment conducted in a concert of hardcore punk music. The crowd and its intensity provide the material. The shared expressions of joy, violence, and boredom are the elements of the cultural fiction at stake here. Within it, forms are tried, shifted, repeated. I approach community as a complex interplay in which individuals invent themselves. Sharing rules, postures, rhythms, each one constructs itself and creates a world. This movement of construction is at the heart of my work. I believe that it is always flexible, modifiable, that it can be altered and recreated. I believe in the fiction and the possibility of its reinvention.

Fabien Giraud, born in France in 1980, has studied at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris and at the National Institute of Design in India. Presently living and working at Le Fresnoy, Studio National des Arts Contemporains in Tourcoing, France.

Somewhere, a young man is asleep, his room illuminated green by the flicker of his computer screensaver. Even the night sky resembles its digital replication. Anthropological observations on sleep in the age of technology, and the ways in which it substitutes natural environments.

Alexander Girav was born in Chicago in 1995 and now works as a cinematographer in Los Angeles. While a student at CalArts, he had his work screen at The Chicago International Film Festival and Valvidia International Film Festival. Upon receiving his BFA in Film/Video, Alex`s work has been selected to screen by Ann Arbor Film Festival and International Film Festival Rotterdam - among others.

San Borondón is a mythical island that appears and disappears. It has appeared on maps throughout history in the vicinity of the Canary Islands. The legend of the island of San Borondón became so pervasive that, during the XVI, XVI and XVIII centuries, expeditions were organized to find and conquer it. After centuries of oblivion, it has finally been found.

Helena Girón and Samuel M. Delgado Their work investigates the relationship between mythology, history and materialism. Their first feature film, Eles transportan a morte (2021), premiered at the Venice and San Sebastian festivals winning awards at both. It has subsequently been shown at international festivals such as Rotterdam, Cairo, Mar del Plata, Viennale, Hamburg and Sao Paulo. Their previous short films have been shown at festivals like Toronto, Locarno, New York, Ann Arbor and many others. They have made installations and performances in art centers like CCCB (Barcelona), BAM (New York), TEA (Tenerife) or Solar (Vila do Conde).

"Threshold Songs," by Natalia Almada and Peter Gizzi is part of "The Tangier 8," a film-poetry project that took place in Tangier, Morocco in June 2009. Working under tight time constraints-they had just four days to film, four days for sound, and four days for editing, the artists took inspiration from the city of Tangier-its history, architecture, people, politics, as well as from each other, to produce these short film-poems.

Natalia Almada- Born in 1974 in Mexico. She graduated with a Masters in Fine Arts in photography from the Rhode Island School of Design and shares her time between Mexico City and Brooklyn, New York. Her directing credits include All Water Has a Perfect Memory, an experimental short film; Al Otro Lado, her award winning debut feature documentary about immigration, drug trafficking and corrido music; and her most recent film, EL GENERAL, a family memoir and portrait of Mexico past and present which premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and won the best documentary director award. Her films have been shown at The Museum of Modern Art, The Guggenheim Museum, The Whitney Biennial, as well as at several film festivals around the world. She has received support for her work from numerous foundations including The Creative Capital Foundation, The Tribeca Film Institute, The Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program, PBS and others. Almada is a MacDowell Colony Fellow and a 2008 Guggenheim Fellow. 2) Peter Gizzi- Born in 1959 in Massachusetts. Gizzi attended Brown University, NYC and SUNY Buffalo. His books include The Outernationale (Wesleyan, 2007), Some Values of Landscape and Weather (Wesleyan, 2003), Artificial Heart (Burning Deck, 1998), and Periplum (Avec Books, 1992). In 2004 Salt Publishing of England reprinted an expanded edition of his first book as Periplum and other poems 1987-92. He has also published several limited-edition chapbooks, folios, and artist books. His work has been translated into numerous languages and anthologized here and abroad. His honors include the Lavan Younger Poet Award from the Academy of American Poets (1994) and fellowships in poetry from The Fund for Poetry (1993), The Rex Foundation (1993), Howard Foundation (1998), The Foundation for Contemporary Arts (1999), and The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (2005).

This project is a sound and visual performance that has its origins in the ubiquitous digital tones of the cell phones comprising the soundtrack of our contemporary life. These sound waves provide the raw material for this piece, which recreates an urban space saturated with an ever-changing cacophony of electronic alerts. In order to add an appropriately surreal dimension to this soundscape, the space is filled with theatrical smoke that creates an atmosphere, which, like the public, is trapped between the physical and digital realities. In this performance Fatos Qerimaj, a contemporary musician, plays the clarinet in a jazz-like dialogue with the ring tones, turning the mobile phones into avatar-instrumentalists of an unpredictable cyborg ensemble. If jazz once responded spontaneously to the rhythms and beat of life, in this piece it still does, with the rhythm of our lives now being the sounds of our digital devices.

Helidon is a contemporary artist, who was born in Albania and currently lives in NYC. He studied art at the Academies of Fine Arts of Tirana and Naples as well as Northwestern University. Over the course of his career he has worked in a variety of mediums, and has shown his work internationally, in venues such as Venice Biennale, Manifesta, Tirana Biennale, Festival of Ideas of the New Museum, and Ludwig Museum. He has taught in several universities and lectured about his work at Harvard, Columbia and Parsons. His work has been reviewed in Artforum and Flash Art. Qerimaj is a distinguished contemporary Albanian musician who plays the clarinet, composes, conducts, and serves as an artistic director and university professor. Born in Albania, he graduated in clarinet and composition from the Academy of Fine Arts in Tirana, where he now works as a professor. He has performed in many concerts throughout Europe and beyond. He is the artistic director of a few festivals in Tirana, such as the Jazz Festival, Clarimpro Festival, and the Magic Flute Festival. Among other prizes, in 2005 he was awarded the Kult Prize for the best Albanian musician of the year.

Gladwell is the calm in the storm. In slow motion we are able to grasp his skating ability - he was after all a champion skateboarder for Australia - as well as his ability to demonstrate the beauty in genuine and profound vulnerability. Gladwell was and continues to be fascinated with the slowing down of time and focusing on the beauty that exists in fleeting moments. In skateboarding culture, skaters will spend hours in front of a TV(or computer screen) playing footage in slow motion to learn and later execute various skateboarding techniques. Unsuspecting viewers are introduced to a standard practice of a particular subculture and offered the opportunity to cast a fresh eye over an ?other?. In the Silent, Ambient and Harder Remixes exhibition catalogue essay, Simon Rees rightly states the artist is wearing Turner-esque shaded clothes that are various shades of grey, which includes the heavy silver chain that sways back and forth with his every move. Not only does this work document contemporary skateboard fashion but it complements the stormy and sombre landscape in the background. Storm Sequence was dedicated to the artist?s skateboard trainer and close friend who died in the late 90?s, hence the interpretation of genuine and profound vulnerability. There is a great sadness that underlies this fabulous piece, yet it is peaceful and meditative. Gladwell is an intelligent, well read artist, interested in theories questioning the notion of public and private spaces and notions of the ?other? and this particular case, the ?sub?. Storm Sequence, made in 2000, is one of a four part series comprised of; Storm Sequence, Kick flipping Flaneur, Tangara and Double Line Work. The work was commissioned by Peter Fay and has been the focus of many exhibitions in Sydney, Canberra, Perth, Beirut, New York and London.

SHAUN GLADWELL Born 1972, Western Sydney Shaun Gladwell completed a bachelor of Visual Art (Hons) at the University of Sydney in 1996, followed by a Masters of Visual Art at the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales. In 2001, he was awarded a three-month Australia Council residency at the Cité International Des Arts, Paris. An Anne and Gordon Samstag International Scholarship enabled him to undertake associate research at Goldsmiths College, London (2001?02). During this time, he was included in the show, The Mind is a Horse, at Bloomberg Space, London. In 2002, Gladwell was commissioned to present a broadcast work for Netherlands TV network 4DTV and was included in Iain Borden?s first theoretical survey on skateboarding culture. Recent solo exhibitions include New Balance at Perth Institute of Contemporary Art (2004) and two Sherman Galleries? exhibitions, Silent, Ambient and Harder Remixes (2003) and MMXBREAKLESS SESSIONS (2005). Shaun Gladwell has been represented in important national and international group exhibitions, including Primavera 2003: Exhibition of Young Australian Artists, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; 2004: Australian Culture Now, Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) and The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, Melbourne; and, in 2005, the Anne Landa Art Award, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Not Worried: New Art From Australia, Raid Projects, Los Angeles; New Acquisitions, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth, NZ; and Space Invaders, Museum Kunsthaus Baselland, Basel, Switzerland. Shaun Gladwell is represented by Sherman Galleries, Sydney.

The film "Making of" takes work as a topic into focus, showing the various working areas of a contemporary art museum with all those activities which usually remain invisible for visitors. Shot from the perspective of a small filmcrew different kind of workflows are documented as well as the preparation for an upcoming exhibition, while the crew itself is constantly observed in their efforts to create this film. Director, cameraman and sound operator move through all areas of the The State Gallery in Linz in an almost performative way. The ongoing visible presence of the camera raises questions about the relationship between the documented actions, their authenticity and manipulation. The depicted reality becomes visible as part of a media construction.

Alexander Glandien was born in 1982 in Schwerin (Germany) and he works as an artist in Vienna. Since 2009 he is artistic and scientific assistant at the Art University Linz. After his studies at the University of Wismar he attended studio grants in Indonesia, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain. His works have been awarded with the Talent Award of Upper Austriaand the Klemens Brosch prize and they are part oft the art collections of the federal government of Austria, the province of Upper Austria, the contemporary art collection of the City of Vienna and the Albertina in Vienna. He has had numerous exhibitions, most recently at the State Gallery Linz, Galerie 5020 in Salzburg, at Kadmium Art Centre in Delft, at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art and at the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History.

This film, extracted from a cinematographic experience driven in jail environment ??9m² pour deux?? has been staged in a background in studio within a jail. Ten men, detainees, became turn by turn, actors a filmmakers of their own life. Each of htem express himself through daily situation in a series of strong moment: friendship, indifference, confrontation, loneliness?

Joseph Casarini is a filmmaker and cameraman but also a photograph. He is graduated from the Marseille Fine Arts. He has an education background of photographer and discovers the universe of prisons in 1987 and realizes his first movie about tattooing in jails ?Tattoo cage?, a 26 min feature. In 1989, he met the cineaste Renaud Victor and collaborates to the realization of the film ?De jour comme de nuit? a long length movie of 2x52mm on detenee?s life. From 1991 to 1991, he co-realizes with Caroline Caccavale ?Coursives?, a series of debates-emissions shot in prisons. In parallel with his work of filmmaker, he founds with the photographer Marcel Fortini the Centre Méditéranéen de la Photographie in Bastia (Corsica, Island). In 1999 and 2000, he realizes two films in the framework of the Video Workshop set by Lieux Fictifs in the Baumettes prison in Marseille. ?Mon ange? and ?La Vraie Vie?, these two short length movies experiment new forms of representation of the imprisoned one. The sight of the detainee on himself, on us, on jail and the emotion that downloads from it are closely tight to the memory act. From 1997, he starts a work in Corsica about islandhood. In 2000, he realizes ?Les Coussins de Barbaggio?, 73 min. In 2001, ?I Paceri? is looking for peace makers. In 2002, he comes back to the Baumettes jail with the project ?9m²? for a cinematographic experience that he co-wrote and realized with Jimmy Glasberg and the collaboration of Christohper, Phillippe, Nourdine, Bruno, Mohamed, Kamel and Olivier. Jimmy Glasberg ? photography director AFC. He started his men of image career in the 60?s as journalist, reporter and cameraman. He took part then actively in the ?cinema direct? movement and collaborated to many films using this shooting technique: ?Continental Circus? (Jean Vigo Prize?) then, ?Shoah? (César of the documentary film) ?Français si vous voulez?,etc... In parallel with his photography director career in the film industry (long features, CM, film) he realizes many documentaries. The apparition of new technologies and particularly DV cameras helped him to think about new tools and their use. This is in this context that he starts in 2002 a film experience in prison sites at the Baumettes jail of Marseille.

The short video and sound essay Air Wave, is a simple elegant way of showing both : the slowness of daily life in some of the remotest areas of the world, as well as the hunger for news from the other world-, the connected-, the global world, in the areas. Adding some harsh relevance is the fact that the subject of the Sudanese news broadcast is partly about Iraq (which is through all sound deformations also to be heard for non Arabic speakers). The shots were taken in Tchad in the Waddai region and in N?Djamena. The artist was there to assist in a documentary on the Darfur refugee problem. Air Wave, one in a number of artists video focusing on matters in actual culture, is distributed by ?Art for People?.

We are, from the start, amazed at so much beauty: a landscape, walkers, a tree, an aria and a young lady riding a bicycle. Short after, a bus silently drives across the night, as if it were floating ; we imagine prisoners being transported during the war in Yugoslavia - a mysterious trail lost in darkness. Here is the origins of the 21st century, a piece of artwork ordered in 2000, for the opening of the Cannes Film Festival - he describes it as an attempt. "I have tried to cover the memories of the atrocious explosions and crimes with children´s faces and the tears and smiles of women". The attempt was of course bound to fail, as there is no cure against all the horrors of the last century in this retrospective. Godard scans the 20th Century in reverse; its major trends include armies and refugees, cannon shots and prisoners, freight trains and mountains of corpses, conquests and occupation, humiliations and torture. And when a scene starts a quest for a lost Century, the aim is not to find again the sweetness of remembrance, but an era lost because it was devastated by violence and wars. The other scene "les plus belles années de notre vie" (after William Wyler's movie "the best years of our life"), is only grim humor. "To me, the 20th Century is - he adds as an excuse -ornament and mass; isolated destinies, lost in bigger trends, unless they find their territory in some story which is at the same time protection and consolidation: "you have to understand that groups of people always play someone else´s game ... and never theirs". In this 17-minute-maelstrom, it is hardly possible to know where the images come from - and maybe it´s better this way. Someone who manages to recognize the little boy from The Shining with his pedal toy car is going to wonder right after where the other passage, where we pass along frozen corpses on snow-covered train tracks, comes from. Movements connect to each other, but their juxtaposition is less futile than it appears to be; on the one hand it´s like a challenge, trying more to remind us not to forget the true horrors beyond fictitious horrors, but on the other hand reminding us not to underestimate cinema when it is about fathoming and capturing the invisible trends of an era. All if a sudden Jerry Lewis, as a Nutty Professor whose metamorphosis tortures him, seems to deliver the comment which is adapted to a century that has been likened to Dr Jekyll, but even more changed into Mr Hyde. Even Jean Seberg doesn´t manage to remain the neutral observer of Godard's world, as his "what is this, disgusting?" is turning against its time. Be it in 1975, 1960, 1945, 1930 or 1915, Godard would be sickened by the last century if it were not for these moments when a child´s face or a woman´s smile prevail. But, the way he shows it, these are only epiphenomena. "Isn´t this happiness?" - "You will at least reckon that this is quite sad" - "but, my dear, happiness isn´t cheerful".

Jean-Luc Godard was born in Paris on the 3d of December 1930. His father was a brilliant doctor and his mother, who belonged to a very well-off family of bankers. They both raised him among books. He first studied in Nyon, Switzerland, and then at the Buffon highschool in Paris. He divided his time between Switzerland and France during his whole youth, and was divided by his parents´ difference in social classes (upper middle class for his mother, average middle-class for his father). In 1949 he studied literature and sciences at the Sorbonne then prepared a certificate in ethnology. He shares his studies between painting, literature, ethnography and cinema (he studies at the Sorbonne´s film institute). At the same time, he could very often be found at the Latin´s district Cine-club, where he met Jacques Rivette, Eric Rohmer and François Truffaut, and at the Cinémathèque Française. He started to write for the Gazette du Cinéma (Cinema magazing), created by Jacques Rivette, in 1950. In 1952, and thanks to his mother who knew Jacques Doniol-Valcroze (Founder, with André Bazin, of the Cahiers du Cinéma), he wrote for the first time in the magazine (8th issue, January 1952), using Hans Lucas as a pseudonym. He was then very good friends with Paul Gégauff and Eric Rohmer. In 1952, Jean-Luc Godard returned to Switzerland in order to avoid military service. Then, to also avoid Swiss enlistment, he went tp South America and Jamaica. When he returned to Switzerland, he worked for the French Switzerland television from which he stole money, thus being briefly sent to prison and then to a mental institute, his father keeping an eye on him. After his mother died in a car accident in 1954, he produced his first short movie, "Opération Béton", the theme of which being the construction of the Grand-Dixence dam. He was then 24, and this movie allowed him to save money. After that, four more personal short movies followed - Le Signe (adapted from Maupassant, shot and produced in Switzerland by JLG), Une Femme Coquette (1955, the story of a woman who writes a friend of hers about cheating on her husband, seducing every man), All the Boys Are Called Patrick (1957, the story of two friends who meet a Casanova), and A Story of Water (A collaboration between JLG and Truffaut, where Truffaut shots the 1958 floodings, and Godard edited and made comments). the meeting between the filmmaker and the producer Pierre Braunberger significantly helped the creation of these short movies. But it is with his fourth fiction short movie, Charlotte and Her Jules, that JLG really gives a glimpse of of the style he is going to use for A Bout de Souffle, Breathless, be it with the aesthetics, the place (the narrow room of the Hôtel de Suède), the characters (the detached young woman and the betrayed young lover). At the same time, JLG played for his friends - for Eric Rohmer in Charlotte et son steak (1953), Jacques Rivette in Paris Is Ours (1958), etc. In 1960, after having shot A bout de souffle, Breathless (thanks to the credits Truffaut who was at the origin of the scenario, and Chabrol. The movie became the flag bearer of the New Wave), he married Anna Karina who became his muse in his following movies (A Woman Is a Woman, It's My Life, The Little Soldier, etc.). He created his own production house, Anouchka Films, with her. A short while after Pierrot le fou was shot, they divorced. In 1966, Anna Karina appears for the last time in one of Godard´s movies, Anticipation (an episode of The Oldest Profession), a futurist fable at the end of which the actress displays a very moving farewell look. In 1967, JLG shoots la Chinoise with Anne Wiazemsky (the granddaughter of François Mauriac, had already appeared in Robert Bresson´s Au Hasard Balthazar). They got married the same year. Still in 1967, he took part in a collective work, Far From Vietnam, for which he left for North Vietnam. In 1968 he collaborated with TV for the first time to shoot Joy of Learning, which was then banned from the program, as the commissioners didn´t like the idea of the director in the end. After he expressed his disagreement when Henri Langlois, then head of the Cinémathèque Française, was fired, he founded the Dziga Vertov group with Jean-Pierre Gorin, Gérard Martin, Nathalie Billard and Armand Marco, Marxist-Leninist militants. Following the events of May 1968, the group dedicated itself to political cinema with strong social claims for several years. Godard´s political years lasted until 1972. In 1973 he started to work with Anne-Marie Miéville, who became his companion. Together they made several movie for six years (including lots of videos) - Here and Elsewhere, Number Two etc. This era showed omnipresent questionings about the relationship between the images and their subject, and movies were really some kind of staged documentaries. In 1979 he returned to "true" cinema, starting to work on a project with Diane Keaton and Robert de Niro, but the project was aborted. His made his real come back with Every Man for Himself (or Slow Motion (UK)), shot in 35mm et the scenario of which was written in collaboration with Anne-Marie Miéville and Jean-Claude Carrière. After having shot Godard's Passion, Jean-Luc Godard started First Name: Carmen. Isabelle Adjani was to play Carmen, but she left after a few days, and was replaced by Maruschka Demeters. In 1984, in order to be able to finish the difficult shooting of Hail Mary, JLG accepted a commissioned movie, Détective, starring Johnny Hallyday, Nathalie Baye and Claude Brasseur. When the movie was screened at the Cannes Festival, JLG was thrown a famous cream cake in the face. Then, inbetween a few video works (including Grandeur et Décadence d`un petit commerce de cinéma, hommage au septième art, On s`est tous défilés, video about Marithé et François Girbaud´s fashion, Le dernier mot (the last word), shot for the 10th anniversary of the Figaro magazine), JLG shot several full-length remarkable movies, from Keep Up Your Right to New Wave and Alas for Me and For ever Mozart. At the same time he started a monumental work - the conception of a huge documentary film aimed at retracing the history of cinema, Histoire(s) du Cinéma ( (Hi)stories of Cinema), made in 1998 (even though the first two episodes date back to 1988), and for which he had to select lots of film images and archives he commented on. He was awarded with a Honor César for this work, at the occasion of the 1998 ceremony. This year, he comes back to cinema as well as the Cannes festival with Eloge de l´Amour after a 5-year-absence, and after having been nominated at Cannes with Every Man for Himself (Slow Motion (UK), 1979), Passion (1982), Détective (1985), Aria (1987, collective movie) and New Wave (1990).

What Jean-Luc Godard says in "Je vous salue, Sarajevo" is still true : "there is always culture which is the rule, and there is the exception which is art". as examples, he quotes Flaubert and Dostoïevski, Gershwin and Mozart, Cézanne and Vermeer, Antonioni and Vigo. But before wondering if he refers to the cultural consensus or its patron saints, he scans a photo of the Yugoslavian war, enumerating : Srebrenica, Mostar, Sarajevo. "the rule wants the exception to die. Therefore, the rule of the cultural Europe will be to organize the death of the art of living that is still flourishing". Then we can see the photo in its whole: it represents two patrolling soldiers, one standing up over three passer-bys lying on the bare ground; he has a cigarette in his hand, and, with the motion of one leg, is about to kick one of the women lying down. We can clearly see that he also has good reasons not to have any illusion about what we name culture. All his latest work bears in itself the harsh established fact that Europe can´t have remembered much from one century of wars, now throwing itself in new wars without any second thought. Because of this sole fact, his movies are from any point of view works against forgetfulness. Michael Althen

Jean-Luc Godard was born in Paris on the 3d of December 1930. His father was a brilliant doctor and his mother, who belonged to a very well-off family of bankers. They both raised him among books. He first studied in Nyon, Switzerland, and then at the Buffon highschool in Paris. He divided his time between Switzerland and France during his whole youth, and was divided by his parents´ difference in social classes (upper middle class for his mother, average middle-class for his father). In 1949 he studied literature and sciences at the Sorbonne then prepared a certificate in ethnology. He shares his studies between painting, literature, ethnography and cinema (he studies at the Sorbonne´s film institute). At the same time, he could very often be found at the Latin´s district Cine-club, where he met Jacques Rivette, Eric Rohmer and François Truffaut, and at the Cinémathèque Française. He started to write for the Gazette du Cinéma (Cinema magazing), created by Jacques Rivette, in 1950. In 1952, and thanks to his mother who knew Jacques Doniol-Valcroze (Founder, with André Bazin, of the Cahiers du Cinéma), he wrote for the first time in the magazine (8th issue, January 1952), using Hans Lucas as a pseudonym. He was then very good friends with Paul Gégauff and Eric Rohmer. In 1952, Jean-Luc Godard returned to Switzerland in order to avoid military service. Then, to also avoid Swiss enlistment, he went tp South America and Jamaica. When he returned to Switzerland, he worked for the French Switzerland television from which he stole money, thus being briefly sent to prison and then to a mental institute, his father keeping an eye on him. After his mother died in a car accident in 1954, he produced his first short movie, "Opération Béton", the theme of which being the construction of the Grand-Dixence dam. He was then 24, and this movie allowed him to save money. After that, four more personal short movies followed - Le Signe (adapted from Maupassant, shot and produced in Switzerland by JLG), Une Femme Coquette (1955, the story of a woman who writes a friend of hers about cheating on her husband, seducing every man), All the Boys Are Called Patrick (1957, the story of two friends who meet a Casanova), and A Story of Water (A collaboration between JLG and Truffaut, where Truffaut shots the 1958 floodings, and Godard edited and made comments). the meeting between the filmmaker and the producer Pierre Braunberger significantly helped the creation of these short movies. But it is with his fourth fiction short movie, Charlotte and Her Jules, that JLG really gives a glimpse of of the style he is going to use for A Bout de Souffle, Breathless, be it with the aesthetics, the place (the narrow room of the Hôtel de Suède), the characters (the detached young woman and the betrayed young lover). At the same time, JLG played for his friends - for Eric Rohmer in Charlotte et son steak (1953), Jacques Rivette in Paris Is Ours (1958), etc. In 1960, after having shot A bout de souffle, Breathless (thanks to the credits Truffaut who was at the origin of the scenario, and Chabrol. The movie became the flag bearer of the New Wave), he married Anna Karina who became his muse in his following movies (A Woman Is a Woman, It's My Life, The Little Soldier, etc.). He created his own production house, Anouchka Films, with her. A short while after Pierrot le fou was shot, they divorced. In 1966, Anna Karina appears for the last time in one of Godard´s movies, Anticipation (an episode of The Oldest Profession), a futurist fable at the end of which the actress displays a very moving farewell look. In 1967, JLG shoots la Chinoise with Anne Wiazemsky (the granddaughter of François Mauriac, had already appeared in Robert Bresson´s Au Hasard Balthazar). They got married the same year. Still in 1967, he took part in a collective work, Far From Vietnam, for which he left for North Vietnam. In 1968 he collaborated with TV for the first time to shoot Joy of Learning, which was then banned from the program, as the commissioners didn´t like the idea of the director in the end. After he expressed his disagreement when Henri Langlois, then head of the Cinémathèque Française, was fired, he founded the Dziga Vertov group with Jean-Pierre Gorin, Gérard Martin, Nathalie Billard and Armand Marco, Marxist-Leninist militants. Following the events of May 1968, the group dedicated itself to political cinema with strong social claims for several years. Godard´s political years lasted until 1972. In 1973 he started to work with Anne-Marie Miéville, who became his companion. Together they made several movie for six years (including lots of videos) - Here and Elsewhere, Number Two etc. This era showed omnipresent questionings about the relationship between the images and their subject, and movies were really some kind of staged documentaries. In 1979 he returned to "true" cinema, starting to work on a project with Diane Keaton and Robert de Niro, but the project was aborted. His made his real come back with Every Man for Himself (or Slow Motion (UK)), shot in 35mm et the scenario of which was written in collaboration with Anne-Marie Miéville and Jean-Claude Carrière. After having shot Godard's Passion, Jean-Luc Godard started First Name: Carmen. Isabelle Adjani was to play Carmen, but she left after a few days, and was replaced by Maruschka Demeters. In 1984, in order to be able to finish the difficult shooting of Hail Mary, JLG accepted a commissioned movie, Détective, starring Johnny Hallyday, Nathalie Baye and Claude Brasseur. When the movie was screened at the Cannes Festival, JLG was thrown a famous cream cake in the face. Then, inbetween a few video works (including Grandeur et Décadence d`un petit commerce de cinéma, hommage au septième art, On s`est tous défilés, video about Marithé et François Girbaud´s fashion, Le dernier mot (the last word), shot for the 10th anniversary of the Figaro magazine), JLG shot several full-length remarkable movies, from Keep Up Your Right to New Wave and Alas for Me and For ever Mozart. At the same time he started a monumental work - the conception of a huge documentary film aimed at retracing the history of cinema, Histoire(s) du Cinéma ( (Hi)stories of Cinema), made in 1998 (even though the first two episodes date back to 1988), and for which he had to select lots of film images and archives he commented on. He was awarded with a Honor César for this work, at the occasion of the 1998 ceremony. This year, he comes back to cinema as well as the Cannes festival with Eloge de l´Amour after a 5-year-absence, and after having been nominated at Cannes with Every Man for Himself (Slow Motion (UK), 1979), Passion (1982), Détective (1985), Aria (1987, collective movie) and New Wave (1990).

Cette ?uvre de commande pour l?Expo Suisse 2002 est, à bien des égards, la réalisation la plus insouciante, bien qu?elle commence sur le 11 septembre. De nouveau se pose la question : qu?est-ce qu?est la réalité, qui impose son interprétation ? On assiste à un joyeux va-et-vient de trains le long du lac Léman, entrecoupé par des peintures et l?histoire du peintre Aimé Pache, qui partit pour Paris et revint dans le Vaudois dans les années 1960 pour achever un grand tableau. Là aussi, il y a un de ces moments dont la beauté époustouflant ; par exemple, quand dans un dialogue entre les narrateurs Jean-Pierre Gos et Geneviève Pasquier, on entend soudain : « Il décide de revenir au pays. Elle accepte. Elle pose la tête sur son épaule parce que l?amour est lourd à porter. C?est une fille avec un garçon. » Ces quatre ?uvres sont des symphonies d?images, de citations, de sons et de bandes sonores. C?est comme si le cinéma lui-même nous parlait, en frère de tous les autres arts, s?entretenant aimablement avec la peinture, la littérature, la musique. Par moments, on dirait que quelqu?un ici essaie de penser avec la rétine. « Une forme qui pense », comme le suggèrent ses Histoire(s) du Cinéma : de fait, on a constamment l?impression que Godard incite les formes elles-mêmes à penser. Sans pour autant que la tâche soit facile, ni pour lui ni pour ses spectateurs. Mais qu?il se le permette donc, car le cinéma, après tout, se rend et nous rend bien trop souvent la tâche bien trop facile.

Jean-Luc Godard est né à Paris le 3 décembre 1930. Son père, brillant médecin et sa mère, issue d`une très riche famille de banquiers, lui donnent une éducation au milieu des livres. Il fait ses études d`abord à Nyon, en Suisse, puis au lycée Buffon à Paris. Durant toute sa jeunesse, il sera partagé entre la Suisse et la France et par la différence de classe sociale de ses parents (grande bourgeoisie pour sa mère et moyenne bourgeoisie pour son père). En 1949, il suit des cours de lettres et de sciences à la Sorbonne puis prépare un certificat d`ethnologie. Ses études se partagent entre la peinture, la littérature, l`ethnographie et le cinéma (il suit des cours de l`Institut de filmologie de la Sorbonne). Parallèlement, il est très souvent au Ciné-club du Quartier Latin (où il fait la connaissance de Jacques Rivette, d`Eric Rohmer et de François Truffaut et à la Cinémathèque Française. Dès 1950, il écrit dans La Gazette du Cinéma, créée par Jacques Rivette. En 1952, par l`intermédiaire de sa mère qui connaît Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, le fondateur, avec André Bazin, des Cahiers du Cinéma, il écrit pour la première fois dans la revue (n°8 de janvier 1952) sous le pseudonyme de Hans Lucas. Il est alors très proche de Paul Gégauff et d`Eric Rohmer. En 1952, Jean-Luc Godard retourne en Suisse pour éviter le service militaire. Puis, pour éviter également l`enrôlement suisse, il part en Amérique du Sud et en Jamaïque. De retour en Suisse, il travaille à la télévision suisse romande à laquelle il vole de l`argent, ce qui lui vaut un bref séjour en prison puis en asile psychiatrique, sous la surveillance de son père. En 1954, après la mort de sa mère dans un accident de voiture, il réalise son premier court métrage Opération Béton, ayant pour thème la construction du barrage de la Grand-Dixence. Il a alors 24 ans et ce premier film lui permet d`avoir de l`argent devant lui. Ensuite, il enchaîne quatre courts-métrages plus personnels : Le Signe (adapté de Maupassant, réalisé et produit en Suisse par JLG), Une femme coquette (1955, l`histoire d`une femme qui écrit à une amie qu`elle a trompé son mari en séduisant le premier venu), Tous les garçons s`appellent Patrick (1957, l`histoire de deux amies qui rencontrent un coureur de jupons) et Une histoire d`eau (collaboration entre JLG et Truffaut : Truffaut filme les inondations de 1958 et Godard monte et commente). La rencontre du réalisateur avec le producteur Pierre Braunberger a considérablement aidé la naissance de ces courts-métrages. Mais c`est avec Charlotte et son Jules, son quatrième court-métrage de fiction que JLG annonce le style d`A bout de souffle, tant au niveau de l`image, du lieu (l`étroite chambre de l`hôtel de Suède) ou des personnages (la jeune fille détachée et le jeune homme amoureux trahi). Parallèlement à ces courts-métrages, JLG fait l`acteur pour ses amis : Eric Rohmer dans Charlotte et son steak (1953), Jacques Rivette dans Paris nous appartient (1958)? En 1960, après le tournage d`A bout de souffle (qu`il a pu tourner grâce aux signatures de Truffaut - à l`origine du scénario - et de Chabrol, et qui devient la figure de proue de la Nouvelle Vague), il épouse Anna Karina qui sera l`égérie de ses films suivants (Une femme est une femme, Vivre sa vie, Le Petit soldat?). Avec elle, en 1964, il fonde sa propre maison de production, Anouchka Films. Peu après le tournage de Pierrot le fou en 1965, ils divorcent. En 1966, pour la dernière fois dans un film de Godard, Anna Karina apparaît dans Anticipation (épisode du Plus vieux métier du monde), fable futuriste dans laquelle, à la fin, l`actrice lance à la caméra un regard d`adieu des plus émouvants. En 1967, Jean-Luc Godard tourne La Chinoise avec Anne Wiazemsky (petite fille de François Mauriac que l`on a déjà vu jouer dans Au hasard Balthazar de Robert Bresson). Il se marient à Paris la même année. Toujours en 1967, il participe à un travail collectif, Loin du Vietnam, pour lequel il part dans la partie nord du Vietnam. En 1968, il collabore pour la première fois avec la télévision pour tourner Le Gai Savoir qui sera refusé d`antenne, les commanditaires n`approuvant finalement pas le film du cinéaste. Après avoir manifesté son désaccord avec le limogeage d`Henri Langlois, alors directeur de la Cinémathèque Française, il fonde le groupe Dziga Vertov avec Jean-Pierre Gorin, Gérard Martin, Nathalie Billard et Armand Marco, militants marxistes-léninistes. Dans la mouvance des événements de mai 68, le groupe se consacre pendant plusieurs années à un cinéma politique aux revendications sociales exacerbées. Les années politiques de Godard durent jusqu`en 1972. Dès 1973, il commence à travailler avec Anne-Marie Miéville qui devient sa compagne. Pendant six ans, tous deux réalisent plusieurs films (dont beaucoup en vidéos) : Ici et ailleurs, Numéro deux, Six fois deux?. Cette période est marquée par une interrogation omniprésente sur le rapport entre les images et leur sujet et s`apparente finalement à des sortes de documentaires mis en scène. En 1979, il revient au " vrai " cinéma : il commence par travailler sur un projet qui ne verra jamais le jour avec Diane Keaton et Robert de Niro. Son réel retour se fait avec Sauve qui peut la vie, film tourné en 35 mm et dont le scénario a été écrit en collaboration avec Anne-Marie Miéville et Jean-Claude Carrière. Après le tournage de Passion, Jean-Luc Godard entreprend celui de Prénom Carmen. Isabelle Adjani, qui devait au départ interpréter le rôle de Carmen (finalement pris par Maruschka Detmers), quitte le plateau au bout de quelques jours. En 1984, afin de pouvoir terminer le difficile tournage de Je vous salue Marie, JLG accepte un film de commande. C`est Détective, avec Johnny Hallyday, Nathalie Baye et Claude Brasseur, film qu`il présente à Cannes où il reçoit une désormais fameuse tarte à la crème. Ensuite, entre quelques travails vidéos (dont, en vrac, Grandeur et Décadence d`un petit commerce de cinéma, hommage au septième art, On s`est tous défilés, vidéos sur les défilés de Marithé et François Girbaud, Le dernier mot, tourné pour les dix ans du Figaro Magazine) JLG tourne plusieurs longs-métrages remarqués, de Soigne ta droite à Nouvelle Vague en passant par Hélas pour moi et For ever Mozart. Parallèlement, il entreprend un ouvrage de taille : la conception d`un documentaire gigantesque visant à retracer la grande épopée du cinéma. C`est Histoire(s) du Cinéma qu`il réalise en 1998 (mais dont les deux premiers volets datent de 1988) et pour lesquelles il compile moult images de films et d`archives qu`il monte et commente. Ce document lui vaut un César d`honneur lors de la cérémonie de 1998. Cette année, c`est avec Eloge de l`amour qu`il revient au cinéma à proprement parler (après cinq ans d`absence dans les salles) et au Festival de Cannes, après avoir été nominé pour Sauve qui peut la vie (1979), Passion (1982), Détective (1985), Aria (1987, film collectif) et Nouvelle Vague (1990).

L??uvre de commande pour le Museum of Modern Art de New York en 1999 aurait pu s?intituler De l?Origine de l?art ? avec la mention supplémentaire « pour nous ». Car Godard et Anne-Marie Miéville, dans cette méditation sur l?art et ses rapports à la réalité, retournent sans cesse à ses origines ? autrement dit, « c?est à la fois ce qui se découvre comme absolument nouveau et ce qui se reconnaît comme ayant existé de tout temps. » Les deux établissent un aimable dialogue avec les autres arts ? la littérature, les arts plastiques, la musique. Il ne s?agit pas non plus ici de donner un aperçu de l?histoire de l?art, mais d?ouvrir des brèches en se demandant quel rapport l?art entretient avec la réalité et ses horreurs. Il ne faut pas s?attendre à quoi que ce soit d?absolu, mais se laisser porter par le cours des images, qui tissent et retissent sans cesse des liens nouveaux, les unes avec les autres, avec les textes et la musique. À une peinture de Monet, Godard et Miéville associent des images de coquelicots poussant le long d?une autoroute ; ainsi faut-il sans doute imaginer leur méthode de travail : hors des sentiers battus de l?histoire de l?art, ils rencontrent partout de l?herbe sauvage. Le matériau est tout organisé, comme par le Dr Mabuse, avec ses mille yeux, et ce qui touche dans ce travail, c?est la simultanéité avec laquelle tout semble coexister et se tendre la main. Tout d?un coup, on est pris d?une grande gratitude ? quel bonheur, en effet, pour les humains que l?art, que tous les arts veillent imperturbablement à former notre image du monde, alors que ce monde fait tout pour nous vendre d?autres images comme étant la réalité. En dépit de son côté radical, il y a toujours eu chez Godard une grande tendresse : il peut arriver que l?on entende soudain la Pastorale de Beethoven et que l?on voit une petite fille avec une natte, dans une petite robe bleue, en train de peindre des fleurs.

Jean-Luc Godard est né à Paris le 3 décembre 1930. Son père, brillant médecin et sa mère, issue d`une très riche famille de banquiers, lui donnent une éducation au milieu des livres. Il fait ses études d`abord à Nyon, en Suisse, puis au lycée Buffon à Paris. Durant toute sa jeunesse, il sera partagé entre la Suisse et la France et par la différence de classe sociale de ses parents (grande bourgeoisie pour sa mère et moyenne bourgeoisie pour son père). En 1949, il suit des cours de lettres et de sciences à la Sorbonne puis prépare un certificat d`ethnologie. Ses études se partagent entre la peinture, la littérature, l`ethnographie et le cinéma (il suit des cours de l`Institut de filmologie de la Sorbonne). Parallèlement, il est très souvent au Ciné-club du Quartier Latin (où il fait la connaissance de Jacques Rivette, d`Eric Rohmer et de François Truffaut et à la Cinémathèque Française. Dès 1950, il écrit dans La Gazette du Cinéma, créée par Jacques Rivette. En 1952, par l`intermédiaire de sa mère qui connaît Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, le fondateur, avec André Bazin, des Cahiers du Cinéma, il écrit pour la première fois dans la revue (n°8 de janvier 1952) sous le pseudonyme de Hans Lucas. Il est alors très proche de Paul Gégauff et d`Eric Rohmer. En 1952, Jean-Luc Godard retourne en Suisse pour éviter le service militaire. Puis, pour éviter également l`enrôlement suisse, il part en Amérique du Sud et en Jamaïque. De retour en Suisse, il travaille à la télévision suisse romande à laquelle il vole de l`argent, ce qui lui vaut un bref séjour en prison puis en asile psychiatrique, sous la surveillance de son père. En 1954, après la mort de sa mère dans un accident de voiture, il réalise son premier court métrage Opération Béton, ayant pour thème la construction du barrage de la Grand-Dixence. Il a alors 24 ans et ce premier film lui permet d`avoir de l`argent devant lui. Ensuite, il enchaîne quatre courts-métrages plus personnels : Le Signe (adapté de Maupassant, réalisé et produit en Suisse par JLG), Une femme coquette (1955, l`histoire d`une femme qui écrit à une amie qu`elle a trompé son mari en séduisant le premier venu), Tous les garçons s`appellent Patrick (1957, l`histoire de deux amies qui rencontrent un coureur de jupons) et Une histoire d`eau (collaboration entre JLG et Truffaut : Truffaut filme les inondations de 1958 et Godard monte et commente). La rencontre du réalisateur avec le producteur Pierre Braunberger a considérablement aidé la naissance de ces courts-métrages. Mais c`est avec Charlotte et son Jules, son quatrième court-métrage de fiction que JLG annonce le style d`A bout de souffle, tant au niveau de l`image, du lieu (l`étroite chambre de l`hôtel de Suède) ou des personnages (la jeune fille détachée et le jeune homme amoureux trahi). Parallèlement à ces courts-métrages, JLG fait l`acteur pour ses amis : Eric Rohmer dans Charlotte et son steak (1953), Jacques Rivette dans Paris nous appartient (1958)? En 1960, après le tournage d`A bout de souffle (qu`il a pu tourner grâce aux signatures de Truffaut - à l`origine du scénario - et de Chabrol, et qui devient la figure de proue de la Nouvelle Vague), il épouse Anna Karina qui sera l`égérie de ses films suivants (Une femme est une femme, Vivre sa vie, Le Petit soldat?). Avec elle, en 1964, il fonde sa propre maison de production, Anouchka Films. Peu après le tournage de Pierrot le fou en 1965, ils divorcent. En 1966, pour la dernière fois dans un film de Godard, Anna Karina apparaît dans Anticipation (épisode du Plus vieux métier du monde), fable futuriste dans laquelle, à la fin, l`actrice lance à la caméra un regard d`adieu des plus émouvants. En 1967, Jean-Luc Godard tourne La Chinoise avec Anne Wiazemsky (petite fille de François Mauriac que l`on a déjà vu jouer dans Au hasard Balthazar de Robert Bresson). Il se marient à Paris la même année. Toujours en 1967, il participe à un travail collectif, Loin du Vietnam, pour lequel il part dans la partie nord du Vietnam. En 1968, il collabore pour la première fois avec la télévision pour tourner Le Gai Savoir qui sera refusé d`antenne, les commanditaires n`approuvant finalement pas le film du cinéaste. Après avoir manifesté son désaccord avec le limogeage d`Henri Langlois, alors directeur de la Cinémathèque Française, il fonde le groupe Dziga Vertov avec Jean-Pierre Gorin, Gérard Martin, Nathalie Billard et Armand Marco, militants marxistes-léninistes. Dans la mouvance des événements de mai 68, le groupe se consacre pendant plusieurs années à un cinéma politique aux revendications sociales exacerbées. Les années politiques de Godard durent jusqu`en 1972. Dès 1973, il commence à travailler avec Anne-Marie Miéville qui devient sa compagne. Pendant six ans, tous deux réalisent plusieurs films (dont beaucoup en vidéos) : Ici et ailleurs, Numéro deux, Six fois deux?. Cette période est marquée par une interrogation omniprésente sur le rapport entre les images et leur sujet et s`apparente finalement à des sortes de documentaires mis en scène. En 1979, il revient au " vrai " cinéma : il commence par travailler sur un projet qui ne verra jamais le jour avec Diane Keaton et Robert de Niro. Son réel retour se fait avec Sauve qui peut la vie, film tourné en 35 mm et dont le scénario a été écrit en collaboration avec Anne-Marie Miéville et Jean-Claude Carrière. Après le tournage de Passion, Jean-Luc Godard entreprend celui de Prénom Carmen. Isabelle Adjani, qui devait au départ interpréter le rôle de Carmen (finalement pris par Maruschka Detmers), quitte le plateau au bout de quelques jours. En 1984, afin de pouvoir terminer le difficile tournage de Je vous salue Marie, JLG accepte un film de commande. C`est Détective, avec Johnny Hallyday, Nathalie Baye et Claude Brasseur, film qu`il présente à Cannes où il reçoit une désormais fameuse tarte à la crème. Ensuite, entre quelques travails vidéos (dont, en vrac, Grandeur et Décadence d`un petit commerce de cinéma, hommage au septième art, On s`est tous défilés, vidéos sur les défilés de Marithé et François Girbaud, Le dernier mot, tourné pour les dix ans du Figaro Magazine) JLG tourne plusieurs longs-métrages remarqués, de Soigne ta droite à Nouvelle Vague en passant par Hélas pour moi et For ever Mozart. Parallèlement, il entreprend un ouvrage de taille : la conception d`un documentaire gigantesque visant à retracer la grande épopée du cinéma. C`est Histoire(s) du Cinéma qu`il réalise en 1998 (mais dont les deux premiers volets datent de 1988) et pour lesquelles il compile moult images de films et d`archives qu`il monte et commente. Ce document lui vaut un César d`honneur lors de la cérémonie de 1998. Cette année, c`est avec Eloge de l`amour qu`il revient au cinéma à proprement parler (après cinq ans d`absence dans les salles) et au Festival de Cannes, après avoir été nominé pour Sauve qui peut la vie (1979), Passion (1982), Détective (1985), Aria (1987, film collectif) et Nouvelle Vague (1990).

L´enfer ("Hell"), about seven or eight minutes long, gathers various war images without any chronological nor historical order, planes, tanks, battleships, explosions, fusillades, executions, people running away, ravaged landscapes, destroyed towns, etc. Black and white alternates with color. the images remain mute, all we can hear are four sentences and four musics (piano). Le purgatoire ("the purgatory"), about one hour long, takes place nowadays in a town in Sarajevo (a martyr amongst others), during the European Book Gatherings (Rencontres Européennes du Livre). One visit at the Mostar Bridge in reconstruction symbolizes the exchange of guilt for forgiveness. Le paradis ("Paradise"), about ten minutes long, displays a young woman - already appearing in the second episode - who, having sacrificed herself, finds near the water on a little beach guarded by a few US Marines.

Jean-Luc Godard was born in Paris on the 3d of December 1930. His father was a brilliant doctor and his mother, who belonged to a very well-off family of bankers. They both raised him among books. He first studied in Nyon, Switzerland, and then at the Buffon highschool in Paris. He divided his time between Switzerland and France during his whole youth, and was divided by his parents´ difference in social classes (upper middle class for his mother, average middle-class for his father). In 1949 he studied literature and sciences at the Sorbonne then prepared a certificate in ethnology. He shares his studies between painting, literature, ethnography and cinema (he studies at the Sorbonne´s film institute). At the same time, he could very often be found at the Latin´s district Cine-club, where he met Jacques Rivette, Eric Rohmer and François Truffaut, and at the Cinémathèque Française. He started to write for the Gazette du Cinéma (Cinema magazing), created by Jacques Rivette, in 1950. In 1952, and thanks to his mother who knew Jacques Doniol-Valcroze (Founder, with André Bazin, of the Cahiers du Cinéma), he wrote for the first time in the magazine (8th issue, January 1952), using Hans Lucas as a pseudonym. He was then very good friends with Paul Gégauff and Eric Rohmer. In 1952, Jean-Luc Godard returned to Switzerland in order to avoid military service. Then, to also avoid Swiss enlistment, he went tp South America and Jamaica. When he returned to Switzerland, he worked for the French Switzerland television from which he stole money, thus being briefly sent to prison and then to a mental institute, his father keeping an eye on him. After his mother died in a car accident in 1954, he produced his first short movie, "Opération Béton", the theme of which being the construction of the Grand-Dixence dam. He was then 24, and this movie allowed him to save money. After that, four more personal short movies followed - Le Signe (adapted from Maupassant, shot and produced in Switzerland by JLG), Une Femme Coquette (1955, the story of a woman who writes a friend of hers about cheating on her husband, seducing every man), All the Boys Are Called Patrick (1957, the story of two friends who meet a Casanova), and A Story of Water (A collaboration between JLG and Truffaut, where Truffaut shots the 1958 floodings, and Godard edited and made comments). the meeting between the filmmaker and the producer Pierre Braunberger significantly helped the creation of these short movies. But it is with his fourth fiction short movie, Charlotte and Her Jules, that JLG really gives a glimpse of of the style he is going to use for A Bout de Souffle, Breathless, be it with the aesthetics, the place (the narrow room of the Hôtel de Suède), the characters (the detached young woman and the betrayed young lover). At the same time, JLG played for his friends - for Eric Rohmer in Charlotte et son steak (1953), Jacques Rivette in Paris Is Ours (1958), etc. In 1960, after having shot A bout de souffle, Breathless (thanks to the credits Truffaut who was at the origin of the scenario, and Chabrol. The movie became the flag bearer of the New Wave), he married Anna Karina who became his muse in his following movies (A Woman Is a Woman, It's My Life, The Little Soldier, etc.). He created his own production house, Anouchka Films, with her. A short while after Pierrot le fou was shot, they divorced. In 1966, Anna Karina appears for the last time in one of Godard´s movies, Anticipation (an episode of The Oldest Profession), a futurist fable at the end of which the actress displays a very moving farewell look. In 1967, JLG shoots la Chinoise with Anne Wiazemsky (the granddaughter of François Mauriac, had already appeared in Robert Bresson´s Au Hasard Balthazar). They got married the same year. Still in 1967, he took part in a collective work, Far From Vietnam, for which he left for North Vietnam. In 1968 he collaborated with TV for the first time to shoot Joy of Learning, which was then banned from the program, as the commissioners didn´t like the idea of the director in the end. After he expressed his disagreement when Henri Langlois, then head of the Cinémathèque Française, was fired, he founded the Dziga Vertov group with Jean-Pierre Gorin, Gérard Martin, Nathalie Billard and Armand Marco, Marxist-Leninist militants. Following the events of May 1968, the group dedicated itself to political cinema with strong social claims for several years. Godard´s political years lasted until 1972. In 1973 he started to work with Anne-Marie Miéville, who became his companion. Together they made several movie for six years (including lots of videos) - Here and Elsewhere, Number Two etc. This era showed omnipresent questionings about the relationship between the images and their subject, and movies were really some kind of staged documentaries. In 1979 he returned to "true" cinema, starting to work on a project with Diane Keaton and Robert de Niro, but the project was aborted. His made his real come back with Every Man for Himself (or Slow Motion (UK)), shot in 35mm et the scenario of which was written in collaboration with Anne-Marie Miéville and Jean-Claude Carrière. After having shot Godard's Passion, Jean-Luc Godard started First Name: Carmen. Isabelle Adjani was to play Carmen, but she left after a few days, and was replaced by Maruschka Demeters. In 1984, in order to be able to finish the difficult shooting of Hail Mary, JLG accepted a commissioned movie, Détective, starring Johnny Hallyday, Nathalie Baye and Claude Brasseur. When the movie was screened at the Cannes Festival, JLG was thrown a famous cream cake in the face. Then, inbetween a few video works (including Grandeur et Décadence d`un petit commerce de cinéma, hommage au septième art, On s`est tous défilés, video about Marithé et François Girbaud´s fashion, Le dernier mot (the last word), shot for the 10th anniversary of the Figaro magazine), JLG shot several full-length remarkable movies, from Keep Up Your Right to New Wave and Alas for Me and For ever Mozart. At the same time he started a monumental work - the conception of a huge documentary film aimed at retracing the history of cinema, Histoire(s) du Cinéma ( (Hi)stories of Cinema), made in 1998 (even though the first two episodes date back to 1988), and for which he had to select lots of film images and archives he commented on. He was awarded with a Honor César for this work, at the occasion of the 1998 ceremony. This year, he comes back to cinema as well as the Cannes festival with Eloge de l´Amour after a 5-year-absence, and after having been nominated at Cannes with Every Man for Himself (Slow Motion (UK), 1979), Passion (1982), Détective (1985), Aria (1987, collective movie) and New Wave (1990).

Do you still remember how, long ago, we trained our thoughts? Most often we’d start from a dream… We wondered how, in total darkness, colours of such intensity could emerge within us. In a soft, low voice Saying great things, Surprising, deep and accurate matters. Image and words Like a bad dream written on a stormy night. Under western eyes. The lost paradises. War is here.

Swiss citizen. Born on 3 December 1930 in Paris (France)

We are, from the start, amazed at so much beauty: a landscape, walkers, a tree, an aria and a young lady riding a bicycle. Short after, a bus silently drives across the night, as if it were floating ; we imagine prisoners being transported during the war in Yugoslavia - a mysterious trail lost in darkness. Here is the origins of the 21st century, a piece of artwork ordered in 2000, for the opening of the Cannes Film Festival - he describes it as an attempt. "I have tried to cover the memories of the atrocious explosions and crimes with children´s faces and the tears and smiles of women". The attempt was of course bound to fail, as there is no cure against all the horrors of the last century in this retrospective. Godard scans the 20th Century in reverse; its major trends include armies and refugees, cannon shots and prisoners, freight trains and mountains of corpses, conquests and occupation, humiliations and torture. And when a scene starts a quest for a lost Century, the aim is not to find again the sweetness of remembrance, but an era lost because it was devastated by violence and wars. The other scene "les plus belles années de notre vie" (after William Wyler's movie "the best years of our life"), is only grim humor. "To me, the 20th Century is - he adds as an excuse -ornament and mass; isolated destinies, lost in bigger trends, unless they find their territory in some story which is at the same time protection and consolidation: "you have to understand that groups of people always play someone else´s game ... and never theirs". In this 17-minute-maelstrom, it is hardly possible to know where the images come from - and maybe it´s better this way. Someone who manages to recognize the little boy from The Shining with his pedal toy car is going to wonder right after where the other passage, where we pass along frozen corpses on snow-covered train tracks, comes from. Movements connect to each other, but their juxtaposition is less futile than it appears to be; on the one hand it´s like a challenge, trying more to remind us not to forget the true horrors beyond fictitious horrors, but on the other hand reminding us not to underestimate cinema when it is about fathoming and capturing the invisible trends of an era. All if a sudden Jerry Lewis, as a Nutty Professor whose metamorphosis tortures him, seems to deliver the comment which is adapted to a century that has been likened to Dr Jekyll, but even more changed into Mr Hyde. Even Jean Seberg doesn´t manage to remain the neutral observer of Godard's world, as his "what is this, disgusting?" is turning against its time. Be it in 1975, 1960, 1945, 1930 or 1915, Godard would be sickened by the last century if it were not for these moments when a child´s face or a woman´s smile prevail. But, the way he shows it, these are only epiphenomena. "Isn´t this happiness?" - "You will at least reckon that this is quite sad" - "but, my dear, happiness isn´t cheerful".

Jean-Luc Godard was born in Paris on the 3d of December 1930. His father was a brilliant doctor and his mother, who belonged to a very well-off family of bankers. They both raised him among books. He first studied in Nyon, Switzerland, and then at the Buffon highschool in Paris. He divided his time between Switzerland and France during his whole youth, and was divided by his parents´ difference in social classes (upper middle class for his mother, average middle-class for his father). In 1949 he studied literature and sciences at the Sorbonne then prepared a certificate in ethnology. He shares his studies between painting, literature, ethnography and cinema (he studies at the Sorbonne´s film institute). At the same time, he could very often be found at the Latin´s district Cine-club, where he met Jacques Rivette, Eric Rohmer and François Truffaut, and at the Cinémathèque Française. He started to write for the Gazette du Cinéma (Cinema magazing), created by Jacques Rivette, in 1950. In 1952, and thanks to his mother who knew Jacques Doniol-Valcroze (Founder, with André Bazin, of the Cahiers du Cinéma), he wrote for the first time in the magazine (8th issue, January 1952), using Hans Lucas as a pseudonym. He was then very good friends with Paul Gégauff and Eric Rohmer. In 1952, Jean-Luc Godard returned to Switzerland in order to avoid military service. Then, to also avoid Swiss enlistment, he went tp South America and Jamaica. When he returned to Switzerland, he worked for the French Switzerland television from which he stole money, thus being briefly sent to prison and then to a mental institute, his father keeping an eye on him. After his mother died in a car accident in 1954, he produced his first short movie, "Opération Béton", the theme of which being the construction of the Grand-Dixence dam. He was then 24, and this movie allowed him to save money. After that, four more personal short movies followed - Le Signe (adapted from Maupassant, shot and produced in Switzerland by JLG), Une Femme Coquette (1955, the story of a woman who writes a friend of hers about cheating on her husband, seducing every man), All the Boys Are Called Patrick (1957, the story of two friends who meet a Casanova), and A Story of Water (A collaboration between JLG and Truffaut, where Truffaut shots the 1958 floodings, and Godard edited and made comments). the meeting between the filmmaker and the producer Pierre Braunberger significantly helped the creation of these short movies. But it is with his fourth fiction short movie, Charlotte and Her Jules, that JLG really gives a glimpse of of the style he is going to use for A Bout de Souffle, Breathless, be it with the aesthetics, the place (the narrow room of the Hôtel de Suède), the characters (the detached young woman and the betrayed young lover). At the same time, JLG played for his friends - for Eric Rohmer in Charlotte et son steak (1953), Jacques Rivette in Paris Is Ours (1958), etc. In 1960, after having shot A bout de souffle, Breathless (thanks to the credits Truffaut who was at the origin of the scenario, and Chabrol. The movie became the flag bearer of the New Wave), he married Anna Karina who became his muse in his following movies (A Woman Is a Woman, It's My Life, The Little Soldier, etc.). He created his own production house, Anouchka Films, with her. A short while after Pierrot le fou was shot, they divorced. In 1966, Anna Karina appears for the last time in one of Godard´s movies, Anticipation (an episode of The Oldest Profession), a futurist fable at the end of which the actress displays a very moving farewell look. In 1967, JLG shoots la Chinoise with Anne Wiazemsky (the granddaughter of François Mauriac, had already appeared in Robert Bresson´s Au Hasard Balthazar). They got married the same year. Still in 1967, he took part in a collective work, Far From Vietnam, for which he left for North Vietnam. In 1968 he collaborated with TV for the first time to shoot Joy of Learning, which was then banned from the program, as the commissioners didn´t like the idea of the director in the end. After he expressed his disagreement when Henri Langlois, then head of the Cinémathèque Française, was fired, he founded the Dziga Vertov group with Jean-Pierre Gorin, Gérard Martin, Nathalie Billard and Armand Marco, Marxist-Leninist militants. Following the events of May 1968, the group dedicated itself to political cinema with strong social claims for several years. Godard´s political years lasted until 1972. In 1973 he started to work with Anne-Marie Miéville, who became his companion. Together they made several movie for six years (including lots of videos) - Here and Elsewhere, Number Two etc. This era showed omnipresent questionings about the relationship between the images and their subject, and movies were really some kind of staged documentaries. In 1979 he returned to "true" cinema, starting to work on a project with Diane Keaton and Robert de Niro, but the project was aborted. His made his real come back with Every Man for Himself (or Slow Motion (UK)), shot in 35mm et the scenario of which was written in collaboration with Anne-Marie Miéville and Jean-Claude Carrière. After having shot Godard's Passion, Jean-Luc Godard started First Name: Carmen. Isabelle Adjani was to play Carmen, but she left after a few days, and was replaced by Maruschka Demeters. In 1984, in order to be able to finish the difficult shooting of Hail Mary, JLG accepted a commissioned movie, Détective, starring Johnny Hallyday, Nathalie Baye and Claude Brasseur. When the movie was screened at the Cannes Festival, JLG was thrown a famous cream cake in the face. Then, inbetween a few video works (including Grandeur et Décadence d`un petit commerce de cinéma, hommage au septième art, On s`est tous défilés, video about Marithé et François Girbaud´s fashion, Le dernier mot (the last word), shot for the 10th anniversary of the Figaro magazine), JLG shot several full-length remarkable movies, from Keep Up Your Right to New Wave and Alas for Me and For ever Mozart. At the same time he started a monumental work - the conception of a huge documentary film aimed at retracing the history of cinema, Histoire(s) du Cinéma ( (Hi)stories of Cinema), made in 1998 (even though the first two episodes date back to 1988), and for which he had to select lots of film images and archives he commented on. He was awarded with a Honor César for this work, at the occasion of the 1998 ceremony. This year, he comes back to cinema as well as the Cannes festival with Eloge de l´Amour after a 5-year-absence, and after having been nominated at Cannes with Every Man for Himself (Slow Motion (UK), 1979), Passion (1982), Détective (1985), Aria (1987, collective movie) and New Wave (1990).

What Jean-Luc Godard says in "Je vous salue, Sarajevo" is still true : "there is always culture which is the rule, and there is the exception which is art". as examples, he quotes Flaubert and Dostoïevski, Gershwin and Mozart, Cézanne and Vermeer, Antonioni and Vigo. But before wondering if he refers to the cultural consensus or its patron saints, he scans a photo of the Yugoslavian war, enumerating : Srebrenica, Mostar, Sarajevo. "the rule wants the exception to die. Therefore, the rule of the cultural Europe will be to organize the death of the art of living that is still flourishing". Then we can see the photo in its whole: it represents two patrolling soldiers, one standing up over three passer-bys lying on the bare ground; he has a cigarette in his hand, and, with the motion of one leg, is about to kick one of the women lying down. We can clearly see that he also has good reasons not to have any illusion about what we name culture. All his latest work bears in itself the harsh established fact that Europe can´t have remembered much from one century of wars, now throwing itself in new wars without any second thought. Because of this sole fact, his movies are from any point of view works against forgetfulness. Michael Althen

Jean-Luc Godard was born in Paris on the 3d of December 1930. His father was a brilliant doctor and his mother, who belonged to a very well-off family of bankers. They both raised him among books. He first studied in Nyon, Switzerland, and then at the Buffon highschool in Paris. He divided his time between Switzerland and France during his whole youth, and was divided by his parents´ difference in social classes (upper middle class for his mother, average middle-class for his father). In 1949 he studied literature and sciences at the Sorbonne then prepared a certificate in ethnology. He shares his studies between painting, literature, ethnography and cinema (he studies at the Sorbonne´s film institute). At the same time, he could very often be found at the Latin´s district Cine-club, where he met Jacques Rivette, Eric Rohmer and François Truffaut, and at the Cinémathèque Française. He started to write for the Gazette du Cinéma (Cinema magazing), created by Jacques Rivette, in 1950. In 1952, and thanks to his mother who knew Jacques Doniol-Valcroze (Founder, with André Bazin, of the Cahiers du Cinéma), he wrote for the first time in the magazine (8th issue, January 1952), using Hans Lucas as a pseudonym. He was then very good friends with Paul Gégauff and Eric Rohmer. In 1952, Jean-Luc Godard returned to Switzerland in order to avoid military service. Then, to also avoid Swiss enlistment, he went tp South America and Jamaica. When he returned to Switzerland, he worked for the French Switzerland television from which he stole money, thus being briefly sent to prison and then to a mental institute, his father keeping an eye on him. After his mother died in a car accident in 1954, he produced his first short movie, "Opération Béton", the theme of which being the construction of the Grand-Dixence dam. He was then 24, and this movie allowed him to save money. After that, four more personal short movies followed - Le Signe (adapted from Maupassant, shot and produced in Switzerland by JLG), Une Femme Coquette (1955, the story of a woman who writes a friend of hers about cheating on her husband, seducing every man), All the Boys Are Called Patrick (1957, the story of two friends who meet a Casanova), and A Story of Water (A collaboration between JLG and Truffaut, where Truffaut shots the 1958 floodings, and Godard edited and made comments). the meeting between the filmmaker and the producer Pierre Braunberger significantly helped the creation of these short movies. But it is with his fourth fiction short movie, Charlotte and Her Jules, that JLG really gives a glimpse of of the style he is going to use for A Bout de Souffle, Breathless, be it with the aesthetics, the place (the narrow room of the Hôtel de Suède), the characters (the detached young woman and the betrayed young lover). At the same time, JLG played for his friends - for Eric Rohmer in Charlotte et son steak (1953), Jacques Rivette in Paris Is Ours (1958), etc. In 1960, after having shot A bout de souffle, Breathless (thanks to the credits Truffaut who was at the origin of the scenario, and Chabrol. The movie became the flag bearer of the New Wave), he married Anna Karina who became his muse in his following movies (A Woman Is a Woman, It's My Life, The Little Soldier, etc.). He created his own production house, Anouchka Films, with her. A short while after Pierrot le fou was shot, they divorced. In 1966, Anna Karina appears for the last time in one of Godard´s movies, Anticipation (an episode of The Oldest Profession), a futurist fable at the end of which the actress displays a very moving farewell look. In 1967, JLG shoots la Chinoise with Anne Wiazemsky (the granddaughter of François Mauriac, had already appeared in Robert Bresson´s Au Hasard Balthazar). They got married the same year. Still in 1967, he took part in a collective work, Far From Vietnam, for which he left for North Vietnam. In 1968 he collaborated with TV for the first time to shoot Joy of Learning, which was then banned from the program, as the commissioners didn´t like the idea of the director in the end. After he expressed his disagreement when Henri Langlois, then head of the Cinémathèque Française, was fired, he founded the Dziga Vertov group with Jean-Pierre Gorin, Gérard Martin, Nathalie Billard and Armand Marco, Marxist-Leninist militants. Following the events of May 1968, the group dedicated itself to political cinema with strong social claims for several years. Godard´s political years lasted until 1972. In 1973 he started to work with Anne-Marie Miéville, who became his companion. Together they made several movie for six years (including lots of videos) - Here and Elsewhere, Number Two etc. This era showed omnipresent questionings about the relationship between the images and their subject, and movies were really some kind of staged documentaries. In 1979 he returned to "true" cinema, starting to work on a project with Diane Keaton and Robert de Niro, but the project was aborted. His made his real come back with Every Man for Himself (or Slow Motion (UK)), shot in 35mm et the scenario of which was written in collaboration with Anne-Marie Miéville and Jean-Claude Carrière. After having shot Godard's Passion, Jean-Luc Godard started First Name: Carmen. Isabelle Adjani was to play Carmen, but she left after a few days, and was replaced by Maruschka Demeters. In 1984, in order to be able to finish the difficult shooting of Hail Mary, JLG accepted a commissioned movie, Détective, starring Johnny Hallyday, Nathalie Baye and Claude Brasseur. When the movie was screened at the Cannes Festival, JLG was thrown a famous cream cake in the face. Then, inbetween a few video works (including Grandeur et Décadence d`un petit commerce de cinéma, hommage au septième art, On s`est tous défilés, video about Marithé et François Girbaud´s fashion, Le dernier mot (the last word), shot for the 10th anniversary of the Figaro magazine), JLG shot several full-length remarkable movies, from Keep Up Your Right to New Wave and Alas for Me and For ever Mozart. At the same time he started a monumental work - the conception of a huge documentary film aimed at retracing the history of cinema, Histoire(s) du Cinéma ( (Hi)stories of Cinema), made in 1998 (even though the first two episodes date back to 1988), and for which he had to select lots of film images and archives he commented on. He was awarded with a Honor César for this work, at the occasion of the 1998 ceremony. This year, he comes back to cinema as well as the Cannes festival with Eloge de l´Amour after a 5-year-absence, and after having been nominated at Cannes with Every Man for Himself (Slow Motion (UK), 1979), Passion (1982), Détective (1985), Aria (1987, collective movie) and New Wave (1990).

Cette ?uvre de commande pour l?Expo Suisse 2002 est, à bien des égards, la réalisation la plus insouciante, bien qu?elle commence sur le 11 septembre. De nouveau se pose la question : qu?est-ce qu?est la réalité, qui impose son interprétation ? On assiste à un joyeux va-et-vient de trains le long du lac Léman, entrecoupé par des peintures et l?histoire du peintre Aimé Pache, qui partit pour Paris et revint dans le Vaudois dans les années 1960 pour achever un grand tableau. Là aussi, il y a un de ces moments dont la beauté époustouflant ; par exemple, quand dans un dialogue entre les narrateurs Jean-Pierre Gos et Geneviève Pasquier, on entend soudain : « Il décide de revenir au pays. Elle accepte. Elle pose la tête sur son épaule parce que l?amour est lourd à porter. C?est une fille avec un garçon. » Ces quatre ?uvres sont des symphonies d?images, de citations, de sons et de bandes sonores. C?est comme si le cinéma lui-même nous parlait, en frère de tous les autres arts, s?entretenant aimablement avec la peinture, la littérature, la musique. Par moments, on dirait que quelqu?un ici essaie de penser avec la rétine. « Une forme qui pense », comme le suggèrent ses Histoire(s) du Cinéma : de fait, on a constamment l?impression que Godard incite les formes elles-mêmes à penser. Sans pour autant que la tâche soit facile, ni pour lui ni pour ses spectateurs. Mais qu?il se le permette donc, car le cinéma, après tout, se rend et nous rend bien trop souvent la tâche bien trop facile.

Jean-Luc Godard est né à Paris le 3 décembre 1930. Son père, brillant médecin et sa mère, issue d`une très riche famille de banquiers, lui donnent une éducation au milieu des livres. Il fait ses études d`abord à Nyon, en Suisse, puis au lycée Buffon à Paris. Durant toute sa jeunesse, il sera partagé entre la Suisse et la France et par la différence de classe sociale de ses parents (grande bourgeoisie pour sa mère et moyenne bourgeoisie pour son père). En 1949, il suit des cours de lettres et de sciences à la Sorbonne puis prépare un certificat d`ethnologie. Ses études se partagent entre la peinture, la littérature, l`ethnographie et le cinéma (il suit des cours de l`Institut de filmologie de la Sorbonne). Parallèlement, il est très souvent au Ciné-club du Quartier Latin (où il fait la connaissance de Jacques Rivette, d`Eric Rohmer et de François Truffaut et à la Cinémathèque Française. Dès 1950, il écrit dans La Gazette du Cinéma, créée par Jacques Rivette. En 1952, par l`intermédiaire de sa mère qui connaît Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, le fondateur, avec André Bazin, des Cahiers du Cinéma, il écrit pour la première fois dans la revue (n°8 de janvier 1952) sous le pseudonyme de Hans Lucas. Il est alors très proche de Paul Gégauff et d`Eric Rohmer. En 1952, Jean-Luc Godard retourne en Suisse pour éviter le service militaire. Puis, pour éviter également l`enrôlement suisse, il part en Amérique du Sud et en Jamaïque. De retour en Suisse, il travaille à la télévision suisse romande à laquelle il vole de l`argent, ce qui lui vaut un bref séjour en prison puis en asile psychiatrique, sous la surveillance de son père. En 1954, après la mort de sa mère dans un accident de voiture, il réalise son premier court métrage Opération Béton, ayant pour thème la construction du barrage de la Grand-Dixence. Il a alors 24 ans et ce premier film lui permet d`avoir de l`argent devant lui. Ensuite, il enchaîne quatre courts-métrages plus personnels : Le Signe (adapté de Maupassant, réalisé et produit en Suisse par JLG), Une femme coquette (1955, l`histoire d`une femme qui écrit à une amie qu`elle a trompé son mari en séduisant le premier venu), Tous les garçons s`appellent Patrick (1957, l`histoire de deux amies qui rencontrent un coureur de jupons) et Une histoire d`eau (collaboration entre JLG et Truffaut : Truffaut filme les inondations de 1958 et Godard monte et commente). La rencontre du réalisateur avec le producteur Pierre Braunberger a considérablement aidé la naissance de ces courts-métrages. Mais c`est avec Charlotte et son Jules, son quatrième court-métrage de fiction que JLG annonce le style d`A bout de souffle, tant au niveau de l`image, du lieu (l`étroite chambre de l`hôtel de Suède) ou des personnages (la jeune fille détachée et le jeune homme amoureux trahi). Parallèlement à ces courts-métrages, JLG fait l`acteur pour ses amis : Eric Rohmer dans Charlotte et son steak (1953), Jacques Rivette dans Paris nous appartient (1958)? En 1960, après le tournage d`A bout de souffle (qu`il a pu tourner grâce aux signatures de Truffaut - à l`origine du scénario - et de Chabrol, et qui devient la figure de proue de la Nouvelle Vague), il épouse Anna Karina qui sera l`égérie de ses films suivants (Une femme est une femme, Vivre sa vie, Le Petit soldat?). Avec elle, en 1964, il fonde sa propre maison de production, Anouchka Films. Peu après le tournage de Pierrot le fou en 1965, ils divorcent. En 1966, pour la dernière fois dans un film de Godard, Anna Karina apparaît dans Anticipation (épisode du Plus vieux métier du monde), fable futuriste dans laquelle, à la fin, l`actrice lance à la caméra un regard d`adieu des plus émouvants. En 1967, Jean-Luc Godard tourne La Chinoise avec Anne Wiazemsky (petite fille de François Mauriac que l`on a déjà vu jouer dans Au hasard Balthazar de Robert Bresson). Il se marient à Paris la même année. Toujours en 1967, il participe à un travail collectif, Loin du Vietnam, pour lequel il part dans la partie nord du Vietnam. En 1968, il collabore pour la première fois avec la télévision pour tourner Le Gai Savoir qui sera refusé d`antenne, les commanditaires n`approuvant finalement pas le film du cinéaste. Après avoir manifesté son désaccord avec le limogeage d`Henri Langlois, alors directeur de la Cinémathèque Française, il fonde le groupe Dziga Vertov avec Jean-Pierre Gorin, Gérard Martin, Nathalie Billard et Armand Marco, militants marxistes-léninistes. Dans la mouvance des événements de mai 68, le groupe se consacre pendant plusieurs années à un cinéma politique aux revendications sociales exacerbées. Les années politiques de Godard durent jusqu`en 1972. Dès 1973, il commence à travailler avec Anne-Marie Miéville qui devient sa compagne. Pendant six ans, tous deux réalisent plusieurs films (dont beaucoup en vidéos) : Ici et ailleurs, Numéro deux, Six fois deux?. Cette période est marquée par une interrogation omniprésente sur le rapport entre les images et leur sujet et s`apparente finalement à des sortes de documentaires mis en scène. En 1979, il revient au " vrai " cinéma : il commence par travailler sur un projet qui ne verra jamais le jour avec Diane Keaton et Robert de Niro. Son réel retour se fait avec Sauve qui peut la vie, film tourné en 35 mm et dont le scénario a été écrit en collaboration avec Anne-Marie Miéville et Jean-Claude Carrière. Après le tournage de Passion, Jean-Luc Godard entreprend celui de Prénom Carmen. Isabelle Adjani, qui devait au départ interpréter le rôle de Carmen (finalement pris par Maruschka Detmers), quitte le plateau au bout de quelques jours. En 1984, afin de pouvoir terminer le difficile tournage de Je vous salue Marie, JLG accepte un film de commande. C`est Détective, avec Johnny Hallyday, Nathalie Baye et Claude Brasseur, film qu`il présente à Cannes où il reçoit une désormais fameuse tarte à la crème. Ensuite, entre quelques travails vidéos (dont, en vrac, Grandeur et Décadence d`un petit commerce de cinéma, hommage au septième art, On s`est tous défilés, vidéos sur les défilés de Marithé et François Girbaud, Le dernier mot, tourné pour les dix ans du Figaro Magazine) JLG tourne plusieurs longs-métrages remarqués, de Soigne ta droite à Nouvelle Vague en passant par Hélas pour moi et For ever Mozart. Parallèlement, il entreprend un ouvrage de taille : la conception d`un documentaire gigantesque visant à retracer la grande épopée du cinéma. C`est Histoire(s) du Cinéma qu`il réalise en 1998 (mais dont les deux premiers volets datent de 1988) et pour lesquelles il compile moult images de films et d`archives qu`il monte et commente. Ce document lui vaut un César d`honneur lors de la cérémonie de 1998. Cette année, c`est avec Eloge de l`amour qu`il revient au cinéma à proprement parler (après cinq ans d`absence dans les salles) et au Festival de Cannes, après avoir été nominé pour Sauve qui peut la vie (1979), Passion (1982), Détective (1985), Aria (1987, film collectif) et Nouvelle Vague (1990).

L??uvre de commande pour le Museum of Modern Art de New York en 1999 aurait pu s?intituler De l?Origine de l?art ? avec la mention supplémentaire « pour nous ». Car Godard et Anne-Marie Miéville, dans cette méditation sur l?art et ses rapports à la réalité, retournent sans cesse à ses origines ? autrement dit, « c?est à la fois ce qui se découvre comme absolument nouveau et ce qui se reconnaît comme ayant existé de tout temps. » Les deux établissent un aimable dialogue avec les autres arts ? la littérature, les arts plastiques, la musique. Il ne s?agit pas non plus ici de donner un aperçu de l?histoire de l?art, mais d?ouvrir des brèches en se demandant quel rapport l?art entretient avec la réalité et ses horreurs. Il ne faut pas s?attendre à quoi que ce soit d?absolu, mais se laisser porter par le cours des images, qui tissent et retissent sans cesse des liens nouveaux, les unes avec les autres, avec les textes et la musique. À une peinture de Monet, Godard et Miéville associent des images de coquelicots poussant le long d?une autoroute ; ainsi faut-il sans doute imaginer leur méthode de travail : hors des sentiers battus de l?histoire de l?art, ils rencontrent partout de l?herbe sauvage. Le matériau est tout organisé, comme par le Dr Mabuse, avec ses mille yeux, et ce qui touche dans ce travail, c?est la simultanéité avec laquelle tout semble coexister et se tendre la main. Tout d?un coup, on est pris d?une grande gratitude ? quel bonheur, en effet, pour les humains que l?art, que tous les arts veillent imperturbablement à former notre image du monde, alors que ce monde fait tout pour nous vendre d?autres images comme étant la réalité. En dépit de son côté radical, il y a toujours eu chez Godard une grande tendresse : il peut arriver que l?on entende soudain la Pastorale de Beethoven et que l?on voit une petite fille avec une natte, dans une petite robe bleue, en train de peindre des fleurs.

Jean-Luc Godard est né à Paris le 3 décembre 1930. Son père, brillant médecin et sa mère, issue d`une très riche famille de banquiers, lui donnent une éducation au milieu des livres. Il fait ses études d`abord à Nyon, en Suisse, puis au lycée Buffon à Paris. Durant toute sa jeunesse, il sera partagé entre la Suisse et la France et par la différence de classe sociale de ses parents (grande bourgeoisie pour sa mère et moyenne bourgeoisie pour son père). En 1949, il suit des cours de lettres et de sciences à la Sorbonne puis prépare un certificat d`ethnologie. Ses études se partagent entre la peinture, la littérature, l`ethnographie et le cinéma (il suit des cours de l`Institut de filmologie de la Sorbonne). Parallèlement, il est très souvent au Ciné-club du Quartier Latin (où il fait la connaissance de Jacques Rivette, d`Eric Rohmer et de François Truffaut et à la Cinémathèque Française. Dès 1950, il écrit dans La Gazette du Cinéma, créée par Jacques Rivette. En 1952, par l`intermédiaire de sa mère qui connaît Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, le fondateur, avec André Bazin, des Cahiers du Cinéma, il écrit pour la première fois dans la revue (n°8 de janvier 1952) sous le pseudonyme de Hans Lucas. Il est alors très proche de Paul Gégauff et d`Eric Rohmer. En 1952, Jean-Luc Godard retourne en Suisse pour éviter le service militaire. Puis, pour éviter également l`enrôlement suisse, il part en Amérique du Sud et en Jamaïque. De retour en Suisse, il travaille à la télévision suisse romande à laquelle il vole de l`argent, ce qui lui vaut un bref séjour en prison puis en asile psychiatrique, sous la surveillance de son père. En 1954, après la mort de sa mère dans un accident de voiture, il réalise son premier court métrage Opération Béton, ayant pour thème la construction du barrage de la Grand-Dixence. Il a alors 24 ans et ce premier film lui permet d`avoir de l`argent devant lui. Ensuite, il enchaîne quatre courts-métrages plus personnels : Le Signe (adapté de Maupassant, réalisé et produit en Suisse par JLG), Une femme coquette (1955, l`histoire d`une femme qui écrit à une amie qu`elle a trompé son mari en séduisant le premier venu), Tous les garçons s`appellent Patrick (1957, l`histoire de deux amies qui rencontrent un coureur de jupons) et Une histoire d`eau (collaboration entre JLG et Truffaut : Truffaut filme les inondations de 1958 et Godard monte et commente). La rencontre du réalisateur avec le producteur Pierre Braunberger a considérablement aidé la naissance de ces courts-métrages. Mais c`est avec Charlotte et son Jules, son quatrième court-métrage de fiction que JLG annonce le style d`A bout de souffle, tant au niveau de l`image, du lieu (l`étroite chambre de l`hôtel de Suède) ou des personnages (la jeune fille détachée et le jeune homme amoureux trahi). Parallèlement à ces courts-métrages, JLG fait l`acteur pour ses amis : Eric Rohmer dans Charlotte et son steak (1953), Jacques Rivette dans Paris nous appartient (1958)? En 1960, après le tournage d`A bout de souffle (qu`il a pu tourner grâce aux signatures de Truffaut - à l`origine du scénario - et de Chabrol, et qui devient la figure de proue de la Nouvelle Vague), il épouse Anna Karina qui sera l`égérie de ses films suivants (Une femme est une femme, Vivre sa vie, Le Petit soldat?). Avec elle, en 1964, il fonde sa propre maison de production, Anouchka Films. Peu après le tournage de Pierrot le fou en 1965, ils divorcent. En 1966, pour la dernière fois dans un film de Godard, Anna Karina apparaît dans Anticipation (épisode du Plus vieux métier du monde), fable futuriste dans laquelle, à la fin, l`actrice lance à la caméra un regard d`adieu des plus émouvants. En 1967, Jean-Luc Godard tourne La Chinoise avec Anne Wiazemsky (petite fille de François Mauriac que l`on a déjà vu jouer dans Au hasard Balthazar de Robert Bresson). Il se marient à Paris la même année. Toujours en 1967, il participe à un travail collectif, Loin du Vietnam, pour lequel il part dans la partie nord du Vietnam. En 1968, il collabore pour la première fois avec la télévision pour tourner Le Gai Savoir qui sera refusé d`antenne, les commanditaires n`approuvant finalement pas le film du cinéaste. Après avoir manifesté son désaccord avec le limogeage d`Henri Langlois, alors directeur de la Cinémathèque Française, il fonde le groupe Dziga Vertov avec Jean-Pierre Gorin, Gérard Martin, Nathalie Billard et Armand Marco, militants marxistes-léninistes. Dans la mouvance des événements de mai 68, le groupe se consacre pendant plusieurs années à un cinéma politique aux revendications sociales exacerbées. Les années politiques de Godard durent jusqu`en 1972. Dès 1973, il commence à travailler avec Anne-Marie Miéville qui devient sa compagne. Pendant six ans, tous deux réalisent plusieurs films (dont beaucoup en vidéos) : Ici et ailleurs, Numéro deux, Six fois deux?. Cette période est marquée par une interrogation omniprésente sur le rapport entre les images et leur sujet et s`apparente finalement à des sortes de documentaires mis en scène. En 1979, il revient au " vrai " cinéma : il commence par travailler sur un projet qui ne verra jamais le jour avec Diane Keaton et Robert de Niro. Son réel retour se fait avec Sauve qui peut la vie, film tourné en 35 mm et dont le scénario a été écrit en collaboration avec Anne-Marie Miéville et Jean-Claude Carrière. Après le tournage de Passion, Jean-Luc Godard entreprend celui de Prénom Carmen. Isabelle Adjani, qui devait au départ interpréter le rôle de Carmen (finalement pris par Maruschka Detmers), quitte le plateau au bout de quelques jours. En 1984, afin de pouvoir terminer le difficile tournage de Je vous salue Marie, JLG accepte un film de commande. C`est Détective, avec Johnny Hallyday, Nathalie Baye et Claude Brasseur, film qu`il présente à Cannes où il reçoit une désormais fameuse tarte à la crème. Ensuite, entre quelques travails vidéos (dont, en vrac, Grandeur et Décadence d`un petit commerce de cinéma, hommage au septième art, On s`est tous défilés, vidéos sur les défilés de Marithé et François Girbaud, Le dernier mot, tourné pour les dix ans du Figaro Magazine) JLG tourne plusieurs longs-métrages remarqués, de Soigne ta droite à Nouvelle Vague en passant par Hélas pour moi et For ever Mozart. Parallèlement, il entreprend un ouvrage de taille : la conception d`un documentaire gigantesque visant à retracer la grande épopée du cinéma. C`est Histoire(s) du Cinéma qu`il réalise en 1998 (mais dont les deux premiers volets datent de 1988) et pour lesquelles il compile moult images de films et d`archives qu`il monte et commente. Ce document lui vaut un César d`honneur lors de la cérémonie de 1998. Cette année, c`est avec Eloge de l`amour qu`il revient au cinéma à proprement parler (après cinq ans d`absence dans les salles) et au Festival de Cannes, après avoir été nominé pour Sauve qui peut la vie (1979), Passion (1982), Détective (1985), Aria (1987, film collectif) et Nouvelle Vague (1990).

L´enfer ("Hell"), about seven or eight minutes long, gathers various war images without any chronological nor historical order, planes, tanks, battleships, explosions, fusillades, executions, people running away, ravaged landscapes, destroyed towns, etc. Black and white alternates with color. the images remain mute, all we can hear are four sentences and four musics (piano). Le purgatoire ("the purgatory"), about one hour long, takes place nowadays in a town in Sarajevo (a martyr amongst others), during the European Book Gatherings (Rencontres Européennes du Livre). One visit at the Mostar Bridge in reconstruction symbolizes the exchange of guilt for forgiveness. Le paradis ("Paradise"), about ten minutes long, displays a young woman - already appearing in the second episode - who, having sacrificed herself, finds near the water on a little beach guarded by a few US Marines.

Jean-Luc Godard was born in Paris on the 3d of December 1930. His father was a brilliant doctor and his mother, who belonged to a very well-off family of bankers. They both raised him among books. He first studied in Nyon, Switzerland, and then at the Buffon highschool in Paris. He divided his time between Switzerland and France during his whole youth, and was divided by his parents´ difference in social classes (upper middle class for his mother, average middle-class for his father). In 1949 he studied literature and sciences at the Sorbonne then prepared a certificate in ethnology. He shares his studies between painting, literature, ethnography and cinema (he studies at the Sorbonne´s film institute). At the same time, he could very often be found at the Latin´s district Cine-club, where he met Jacques Rivette, Eric Rohmer and François Truffaut, and at the Cinémathèque Française. He started to write for the Gazette du Cinéma (Cinema magazing), created by Jacques Rivette, in 1950. In 1952, and thanks to his mother who knew Jacques Doniol-Valcroze (Founder, with André Bazin, of the Cahiers du Cinéma), he wrote for the first time in the magazine (8th issue, January 1952), using Hans Lucas as a pseudonym. He was then very good friends with Paul Gégauff and Eric Rohmer. In 1952, Jean-Luc Godard returned to Switzerland in order to avoid military service. Then, to also avoid Swiss enlistment, he went tp South America and Jamaica. When he returned to Switzerland, he worked for the French Switzerland television from which he stole money, thus being briefly sent to prison and then to a mental institute, his father keeping an eye on him. After his mother died in a car accident in 1954, he produced his first short movie, "Opération Béton", the theme of which being the construction of the Grand-Dixence dam. He was then 24, and this movie allowed him to save money. After that, four more personal short movies followed - Le Signe (adapted from Maupassant, shot and produced in Switzerland by JLG), Une Femme Coquette (1955, the story of a woman who writes a friend of hers about cheating on her husband, seducing every man), All the Boys Are Called Patrick (1957, the story of two friends who meet a Casanova), and A Story of Water (A collaboration between JLG and Truffaut, where Truffaut shots the 1958 floodings, and Godard edited and made comments). the meeting between the filmmaker and the producer Pierre Braunberger significantly helped the creation of these short movies. But it is with his fourth fiction short movie, Charlotte and Her Jules, that JLG really gives a glimpse of of the style he is going to use for A Bout de Souffle, Breathless, be it with the aesthetics, the place (the narrow room of the Hôtel de Suède), the characters (the detached young woman and the betrayed young lover). At the same time, JLG played for his friends - for Eric Rohmer in Charlotte et son steak (1953), Jacques Rivette in Paris Is Ours (1958), etc. In 1960, after having shot A bout de souffle, Breathless (thanks to the credits Truffaut who was at the origin of the scenario, and Chabrol. The movie became the flag bearer of the New Wave), he married Anna Karina who became his muse in his following movies (A Woman Is a Woman, It's My Life, The Little Soldier, etc.). He created his own production house, Anouchka Films, with her. A short while after Pierrot le fou was shot, they divorced. In 1966, Anna Karina appears for the last time in one of Godard´s movies, Anticipation (an episode of The Oldest Profession), a futurist fable at the end of which the actress displays a very moving farewell look. In 1967, JLG shoots la Chinoise with Anne Wiazemsky (the granddaughter of François Mauriac, had already appeared in Robert Bresson´s Au Hasard Balthazar). They got married the same year. Still in 1967, he took part in a collective work, Far From Vietnam, for which he left for North Vietnam. In 1968 he collaborated with TV for the first time to shoot Joy of Learning, which was then banned from the program, as the commissioners didn´t like the idea of the director in the end. After he expressed his disagreement when Henri Langlois, then head of the Cinémathèque Française, was fired, he founded the Dziga Vertov group with Jean-Pierre Gorin, Gérard Martin, Nathalie Billard and Armand Marco, Marxist-Leninist militants. Following the events of May 1968, the group dedicated itself to political cinema with strong social claims for several years. Godard´s political years lasted until 1972. In 1973 he started to work with Anne-Marie Miéville, who became his companion. Together they made several movie for six years (including lots of videos) - Here and Elsewhere, Number Two etc. This era showed omnipresent questionings about the relationship between the images and their subject, and movies were really some kind of staged documentaries. In 1979 he returned to "true" cinema, starting to work on a project with Diane Keaton and Robert de Niro, but the project was aborted. His made his real come back with Every Man for Himself (or Slow Motion (UK)), shot in 35mm et the scenario of which was written in collaboration with Anne-Marie Miéville and Jean-Claude Carrière. After having shot Godard's Passion, Jean-Luc Godard started First Name: Carmen. Isabelle Adjani was to play Carmen, but she left after a few days, and was replaced by Maruschka Demeters. In 1984, in order to be able to finish the difficult shooting of Hail Mary, JLG accepted a commissioned movie, Détective, starring Johnny Hallyday, Nathalie Baye and Claude Brasseur. When the movie was screened at the Cannes Festival, JLG was thrown a famous cream cake in the face. Then, inbetween a few video works (including Grandeur et Décadence d`un petit commerce de cinéma, hommage au septième art, On s`est tous défilés, video about Marithé et François Girbaud´s fashion, Le dernier mot (the last word), shot for the 10th anniversary of the Figaro magazine), JLG shot several full-length remarkable movies, from Keep Up Your Right to New Wave and Alas for Me and For ever Mozart. At the same time he started a monumental work - the conception of a huge documentary film aimed at retracing the history of cinema, Histoire(s) du Cinéma ( (Hi)stories of Cinema), made in 1998 (even though the first two episodes date back to 1988), and for which he had to select lots of film images and archives he commented on. He was awarded with a Honor César for this work, at the occasion of the 1998 ceremony. This year, he comes back to cinema as well as the Cannes festival with Eloge de l´Amour after a 5-year-absence, and after having been nominated at Cannes with Every Man for Himself (Slow Motion (UK), 1979), Passion (1982), Détective (1985), Aria (1987, collective movie) and New Wave (1990).

Letter to Jane (1972) is a postscript film to Tout va bien directed by Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin and made under the auspices of the Dziga Vertov Group. Narrated in a back-and-forth style by both Godard and Gorin, the film serves as a 52-minute cinematic essay that deconstructs a single news photograph of Jane Fonda in Vietnam. This was Godard and Gorin's final collaboration.

On the 13th of November of 2014 a set speakers and a power generator was introduce in the In the Bolivian jungle, near the river Mamoré, an Amazonian affluent. For hours, El sistema (The system), a text by Eduardo Galeano was played on loop in the loud speakers. The uncontrollable and unpredictable forces of nature make the area of Trinidad a hardly habited region, one of the few areas that is still resisting the development of progress, progress understood as a destructive force.

Marco Godoy is a cross disciplinary artist currently working with photography, video and installation. Born in Madrid and now living in London he is MA in Photography at the Royal College of Art, after graduating from the UCM of Madrid and School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His work has been e exhibited internationally in galleries and institutions such as Dallas Museum of Contemporary Art, Matadero Madrid, Stedelijk Museum s-Hertogenbosch, Edinburgh Art Festival, Liverpool Biennial, ICA London, Palais de Tokyo or Whitechapel Gallery.

This is the story, in three parts, of the Agbar Tower designed by Jean Nouvel in Barcelona. This 144 metre-high building, consisting of a circular glass and metal facade with an ovale foundation. What better statement about such work dominating the urban landscape than filming it to assess its impact? Véronique Goal?s standpoint is radical and minimalist. She decides on four static shots, which diminish its looming presence by merging it into the dense urban landscape. Her shots of a solid rather than prominent tower are long enough to allow us a detailed and leisurely look and to be able to perceive the perfect banality of everyday life contrasted by this extreme architecture. The first shot is mute, despite direct sounds of the busy city. The other three are visited by two voices. In a neutral voice without emphasis, they speak three texts in Spanish, French and English. The first text is taken from a promotional poster of the city of Barcelona, the second is a list describing the use of the various floors, and the third is a description of the tower by Jean Nouvel himself. Just like in Chris Marker`s mythical film « Lettres de Sibérie », these comments confer different meanings to one and the same scene. But the superposition of voices in the last shot results in a babble of voices that is definitely unable to deal with this Torre Agbar, whose obtuse silence is recorded by Véronique Goël. (jp - translation : chu)

Véronique Goëlwas born in 1951 in Rolle, Switzerland. She lives in Geneva. From 1967 to 1970, she trained as a modelist dressmaker. She lived and worked in Rome and Brussels in Haute couture and Prêt-à-porter (1970-1971) then in 1972 made a trip to North Africa and West Africa. She worked then as an independent modelist (1973-1975). In 1974-1975, she made a trip to New York then to Florence before studying painting and carving at the Fine Arts School of Lausanne (1976-1978). The following year, in 1979, she took part in the cinema workshop of the Superior School of Visual Arts of Geneva and followed seminaries with J-M Straub and D. Hulet, J. van der Keuben. From 1983 to 1989, she worked and lived in London with the American experimental director Stephen Dwoskin. In 1987, she stayed in Berlin. In 1998, she carried out a research and developed a movie project about the architect from Basel Hans Smith (1893(1972). In 2000, "Memento", a photographic installation was the subject of an exhibition at the Palais of the Athénée in Geneva. In 2001, she conceived and realized a DVD for the exhibition PAIX at the ethnography museum of Geneva. In 2002, "Fugue", a video installation,was exposed at the Triennial of contemporary sculpture of Switzerland, BEX. In 2002-2003 she taught video at the Visual Communication department of HEAA, Geneva. In 2004, "On the Other Side of the See", a photo installation and "Cubes and Plots", were exhibited at the Galerie Ruine in Geneva. From July to December, she obtained a scholarship and started an artistic residence in Barcelona; she realizes series of photographies on the Ciutat Vella and video on Poblenou.

Filmed and recorded in a Berlin S-Bahn (overground Metro) passenger car at train stops, the images and the sounds of ?So Long No See? create a film composition that ends by a reading of a letter paying tribute to Luc Yersin, a film sound engineer who died prematurely on May 30th, 2008. However, this tribute never dwells on itself and the film, in its very writing, places the individual immediately into an anonymous status and by doing so, transposes a reading of a story from a personal level to that of a universal one.

"1550 San Remo Drive" was filmed in February 2017 on the premises of the Thomas Mann House in Pacific Palisades, California, USA. The video features quotes from Thomas Manns diaries (1940-1943), architect JR Davidson and advertisements from the real estate companies which marketed the house, before it was bought by the German government in November 2016 for $13.25 million. The video features detailed shots of the uninhabited house before its recent renovation, quotes from Thomas Manns diaries (1940-1943) and advertisements from the real estate companies which marketed the house. "1550 San Remo Drive" reflects on personal, economical and representational desires and aspirations.

Niklas Goldbach, born in Witten, Germany, lives and works in Berlin. After studying Sociology at Bielefeld University and "Photography and Video" at the Unversity of Applied Sciences Bielefeld, he was awarded with the "Meisterschüler" degree at the University of the Arts Berlin in 2006. In 2005 he received the Fulbright Grant New York and majored in the MFA program of Hunter College, New York City. In his videos, photographies and installations Goldbach is involved in the relation between architecture and ethics within modernist traditions and postmodern cities. Established between reality and fiction, Goldbach's works use architectural concepts and elements to create ambiguous perceptions of man-made environments. In his recent videos and photographs, he appropriates urban environments as stages to examine the relationship between subjectivity and hierarchical societal structures within and beyond the nation state through the lens of a globally expanding interconnectivity of these sites. In his earlier film works, his often duplicated protagonists have colonized epic stages of modern architectural complexes, postmodern urban environments or alleged paradises defying civilisation, all finding their commonality as places oscillating between utopia and dystopia. Niklas Goldbach received several scholarships (among others Stiftung Kunstfonds Bonn 2010, Arbeitsstipendium Bildende Kunst des Berliner Senats 2013, Projektförderung des Berliner Senats 2014, Dresdener Stipendium für Fotografie 2016, Villa Aurora Los Angeles 2017) and presented his works in numerous solo shows, group exhibitions, and festivals in venues such as the Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid, Mori-Art Museum, Tokyo, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein n.b.k., documenta 14 public programs, Berlinische Galerie - Museum of Modern Art Berlin, Cornerhouse, Manchester, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Centre Pompidou, Paris, Houston FotoFest Biennial 2016 and the Short Film Festival Oberhausen.

In his video works, photographs and sculptures, Niklas Goldbach questions the relation between hierarchic societal structures and individual, liberal courses of action. Goldbach ́s protagonists ? dressed in the garment of the urban prototype in white shirts and black trousers and referred to as ?representatives? or ?placeholders? by the artist ? colonize seemingly epic stages of modern architectural complexes, postmodern urban environments or alleged paradises defying civilization, all finding their commonality as places oscillating between utopia, dystopia and heterotopia, while lacking any clearance for an escape. This theme is present in his video "Bel Air" (2011): the video takes us on an inner journey, on a real trip by car through the deserted landscape of the Everglades National Park in Miami. Using elaborate post-production, four of Goldbach ́s representatives negotiate solely via nonverbal communication the various levels of hierarchal conflicts whose result can only anticipate evil. While letting his protagonists (all played by German actor Christoph Bach) act the entire repertoire of male body language as encoded by the media, the parallels to the schizophrenic psychological situation of the individual or the society he is born into are hard to ignore. Text: Viktor Neumann

Niklas Goldbach, born in Witten, Germany, lives and works in Berlin. After studying Sociology at Bielefeld University and ?Photography and Video? at the Unversity of Applied Sciences Bielefeld, he was awarded with a "Meisterschüler" degree at the University of the Arts Berlin in 2006. In 2005 he received the Fulbright Grant New York and majored in the MFA program of Hunter College, New York City. Niklas Goldbach received several sholarships (i.e. Stiftung Kunstfonds Bonn 2010, Arbeitsstipendium Bildende Kunst des Berliner Senats 2013) and has presented his works in numerous solo shows, group exhibitions, and festivals in venues like the Reina Sofia National Museum Madrid, Mori-Art Museum Tokyo, Centre Pompidou Paris, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art, Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Museum Ludwig Köln, Kunstmuseum Mülheim an der Ruhr, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, City Galery Gdansk, European Media Art Festival Osnabrück and the Shortfilm-Festival Oberhausen. Since 2009 he teaches as ?Visisting Professor? at the ?Umeå University - Academy Of Fine Arts?, Sweden. From 2012-13 he worked as guestprofessor for "Basics of Moving Image" at the University of the Arts (UdK) Berlin.

DAWN was filmed in the abandoned basement floor of the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. Originally designed by Dondel, Aubert, Viard and Dastugue, the Palais was completed for the International Exhibition of 1937. Though the palace`s 30s classicism exterior remained intact, the interior has undergone a succession of alterations. This had advanced to a point at which the building had been made structurally unsafe, and the interior come to resemble a ruin. In 2001 the Palais got partly reconstructed: the architects Lacaton & Vassal generated 8000 square metres for a contemporary art gallery space, a bookshop and a restaurant. The video shows around 60 people lying motionless on sleeping bags in the still unrenovated basement floor of the Palais de Tokyo while a disco ball is slowly rotating.

ABOUT Niklas Goldbach was born 1973 in Witten, Germany. He studied photography at the University of Bielefeld and `Experimental Media Arts` at the University of the Arts Berlin where he graduated with honours in 2004. In 2005 he majored in the MFA program `Integrated Media Arts` at Hunter College, City University of New York and postgraduated with a "Meisterschüler" degree of the University of the Arts Berlin. Since 2001 his work has been exhibited throughout Europe, the United States and Asia. From November 2007 until June 2008 Niklas Goldbach was participant of the artist in residency programs of "Palais de Tokyo", and "Cité Internationale des Arts", Paris.

The building in this video is the RCK "Twin" tower, an unfinished building on Charoen Krung Road in Bangkok. The "ghost buildings", as the Thai media call them, were abandoned during the 1997 Asian economic crisis. Many of them are left derelict until today.

Niklas Goldbach was born 1973 in Witten, Germany. He studied photography at the University of Bielefeld and `Experimental Media Arts` at the University of the Arts Berlin where he graduated with honours in 2004. In 2005 he majored in the MFA program `Integrated Media Arts` at Hunter College, City University of New York and postgraduated with a "Meisterschüler" degree of the University of the Arts Berlin. Since 2001 his work has been exhibited throughout Europe, the United States and Asia. From November 2007 until June 2008 Niklas Goldbach was participant of the artist in residency programs of "Palais de Tokyo", and "Cité Internationale des Arts", Paris.

Tear out the eyes is a project that proposes a constellation of works around the gaze, and its political dimension, focusing on the pattern of eye attacks by State security forces. This project arises from the shock of the tragic events that took place in Chile and Colombia in recent years and that have left hundreds of people with eye trauma due to the pellets fred by the police during the demonstrations. It was not only in Chile, it was not only in Colombia. It also happened in Palestine, in Catalonia, in France, in Hong Kong, in Colombia, in Brazil, in Kashmir. Where else? Since when? This method has been evolving since the Israeli- Palestinian confict: bullets aimed to the eyes of protesters to blind them, to mutilate them. At the same time that the devices of police repression increase and are perfected worldwide, the unresolved conficts in each country are strengthened and violence re-emerges, as if it had never gone away. Tear out the eyes, stop seeing, hide, cover, blind, make invisible, disappear. Tear out the eyes question about the immediately preceded moment of mutilation and about what remains after the tragedy. Inquires about the causes, about that violent purpose of generate a blind gaze. At the same time seeks to understand the possible ways to stop the loss of the memory of what the eyes saw: In turn for the possible ways to stop the loss of the memory of what the eyes saw: we imagine the possibility that the eyes return , let the images emerge from the ruins. The eyes return to the bodies, they return with the memory of their marks and their struggles, they return in a gesture of resistance, they return as a possible act of reparation.

Visual artist, curator and professor of Experimental Video and New Media in Argentina and abroad. She is the director of the Bienal de la Imagen en Movimiento (BIM) in Buenos Aires and CONTINENTE, Research Centre for Audiovisual Arts, National University of Tres de Febrero, Argentina. She is also the curator of “El Cine es otra cosa”, the experimental film and video programme at the Museum of Modern Art in Buenos Aires. She is professor in the Electronic Arts career and in the Master in Technology and Aesthetics of Electronic Arts at the National University of Tres de Febrero and in the University of Cinema. She works in video, installations and site-specific interventions. His works fundamentally raise questions related to memory, identity, institutional violence and the world of labour.

Rehearsals to raise the fist. The creation of a gesture, its birth and memory. Instancias de Lucha was carried out together with workers from recovered factories from Buenos Aires and actors from community theater groups whom I invited to rehearse a gesture of struggle. The choice of the sequence shot, fixed frame and slowed down time allows observing the deconstruction of each movement, its gestation, its development and its end. This work belongs to the series "Scenes of work". It takes as its starting point the themes, concerns and visual representations of the group "The artists of the People" (active between 1915 and 1930 in Argentina) and proposes a contemporary rereading in video format.

Gabriela Golder was born in 1971 in Buenos Aires, where she lives and works. Visual artist, curator and professor she is the director of the Bienal de la Imagen en Movimiento (BIM) and curator of El Cine es otra cosa, the Experimental Video and Film Program of the Modern Art Museum in Buenos Aires. She essentially works with “moving image”, and her artistic practice mainly raises issues of memory, identity and the world of labour. Her videos, films and installations, for which she has won several awards and grants, have been presented at numerous exhibition venues and festivals around the world. Among others she received the following awards: Estado da Arte, en la 21a Bienal de Arte Contemporánea Sesc_Videobrasil, Brasil; the "Sigwart Blum Award“ of the Argentinean Arts Critics Association, Argentina; the Media Art Award from the ZKM, Germany, the first prize at Festival Videoformes, France and the Tokyo Video Award.