Paris Programme
Friday 22 November 2024

Lancé dans une course poursuite avec le soleil initiée en 2012 dans « The Most Beautiful Attempt » Anton, 25 ans maintenant, pousse toujours inlassablement des cristaux de sel pour les tenir dans la lumière.

David Brognon, né en 1978 à Messancy (B), et Stéphanie Rollin, née en 1980 à Luxembourg (L), vivent et travaillent à Paris et Luxembourg. Les deux artistes démarrent leur collaboration en 2006, après leur rencontre au MUDAM de Luxembourg. Ensemble, ils développent un travail singulier (installations, sculptures-objets, vidéos, performances, photos), dont l’humain est le matériau principal et la rencontre le moteur. A partir de situations réelles et le plus souvent complexes, ils donnent corps à l’expérience du temps, de la durée ou de l’attente, en prise directe avec la matérialité d’un territoire et de ses limites – en particulier dans le contexte de situations d’enfermement. Attentifs à la marge plutôt qu’au centre, les artistes s’intéressent aux interstices flous où la société cantonne celles et ceux qu’elle marginalise ou invisibilise. « Notre univers, c’est la périphérie, c’est cet espace-temps qu’on ne veut pas voir ».

In Sans histoire, an epic river of thought, current fears of the end of civilization are both “without story” and “without narrative”. Disturbing images of animals in the night, visions of a technologized future and images of people dancing to excess or fleeing war combine to generate an apocalyptic atmosphere. Yet what seems dystopian at first conceals a utopian potential for a new beginning: time and again, Schweizer deploys images of waves, oceans and currents that sweep through what she shows, washing it away and absorbing it. Maya Schweizer draws our attention to oblivion as a reality determined by human life. In this paradox lies her proposal for confronting the existential fears of our time: Sans histoire is a space for honoring memory and a monument to oblivion.

Maya Schweizer, born in Paris, studied art and art history in Aix-en-Provence, at the Hochschule der bildenden Künste Leipzig (HGB), where she completed her pre-diploma, and at the Universität der Künste (UdK) Berlin in the class of Lothar Baumgarten, where she graduated in 2006 and was awarded the title of Meisterschülerin in 2007. Schweizer works in a variety of media (including photography and textiles), although her focus is on experimental video works. She has had numerous solo exhibitions (including Jewish Museum Berlin, 2023, Deutscher Künstlerbund, Berlin - Exhibition winner of the HAP Grieshaber 2022 award, Museum Villa Stuck, Munich, 2020/21, Kunstverein Leipzig, 2018, Kunstverein Langenhagen, 2013, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, 2016, Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, 2014, Frankfurter Kunstverein, 2011, Westfälischer Kunstverein Münster, 2010. She has shown her work in group exhibitions and at biennials including Neuen Berliner Kunstverein e.V., Berlin 2020, Manifesta 13 Marseille, 2020, Anren Biennale China, 2018, Kunsthaus Dresden, 2016, The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York, 2013, Centre Georges Pompidou, 2007,Berlin Biennale, 2006. Her videos have already been selected for numerous festivals and events, including Forum expanded during the 67th and the 71.rst Berlin International Film Festival, Berlinale (in 2017 and 2021), the Vancouver International Film Festival (2017, 2020) and the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen several times. Examples of the Awards, project grants and residencies, include; Funding programme for women artists in film/video, 2024, Dagesh Art Award 2023, HAP-Grieshaber-Prize, 2022, e-flux film award, 2019, Artist in Residence, La Non-Maison, 2014, Studio grant, Karl Hofer Gesellschaft, 2008–2010, Villa Aurora, Los Angeles (2008). So far, four monographs on her work have been published: Voices, (Walther and Franz König, 2121), Where Ivy Cracks The Wall (Naima, Paris / Berlin 2019), Lieux de Mémoire and Desire (Archive Books, Berlin 2015) and Maya Schweizer?The Same Story Elsewhere (Spector Books, Leipzig 2010). Schweizer works in Germany and France.

CAMBIUM, the cellular stratum of trees, it’s a cambial membrane that runs along the trunk and roots, producing growth. In the Navarrese Pyrenees a community has decided to cut down a pine forest in order to recover ancient fields for cultivation and animal grazing. Structured in two parts, the film traces the change of a territory traversed by practices of violence and care for the land.After the abandonment of the villages during the 1960s in the Arce Valley, the Government of Franco planted pines in the fields that were used for grazing as part of a state programme of reforestation and forestry. More than 50 years later, in Lakabe, a village repopulated in the 1980s, they have decided to cut down the pines and recover their meadows for livestock. Through different data capture and image technologies, CAMBIUM explores, together with the inhabitants of the area, a territory in transformation.

Maddi Barber studied audiovisual communication at the University of the Basque Country and did a master's degree in visual anthropology at the University of Manchester. In 2019 she created the production company Pirenaika, with which she has produced some of her films as well as those of other artists and filmmakers from the nearby context such as Gerard Ortin, Ainhoa Gutiérrez and Irati Gorostidi. Her latest co-production, CONTADORES, by Irati Gorostidi, had its international premiere at the Semaine de la Critique in Cannes. She is currently participating in Tabakalera's Ikusmira Berriak residency, where she is developing the feature-length fiction film CLAROS DE BOSQUE. Marina Lameiro is a filmmaker and producer. She holds a degree in Audiovisual Communication from the URJC and a master's degree in Creative Documentary from IDEC-UPF and a postgraduate degree in Audiovisual Editing from the same university. She was part of the Collaborative Studio (CoLab) of UnionDocs in New York City as an artist-in-residence. In 2018 he released her first feature film YOUNG & BEAUTIFUL which, among other awards, won the Special Audience Award at the Punto de Vista Festival in 2018, was nominated for the Feroz Awards and has been screened in more than 20 countries. In 2021 she released DARDARA, her second feature film, which entered the list of the 10 most-seen films in cinemas after its premiere at the Punto de Vista Festival.

Filmed between dusk and dawn, Liquid Skin was filmed with nine women, who all perform night-time labour, across a wide variety of professions, including a baker, pole dancer, care worker, nightclub owner, cleaner etc. These women take us on a tour of night-time working environments, linked by history, economics and events shaping the post-industrial landscape of the Ruhr region in Germany. Through this choice of locations, the work links the nocturnal with questions on the subterranean, which is so present across this region with its thousands of kilometres of quiet tunnels underneath. The video consists of long, mostly single shot sequences each guided by one protagonist. Filming in black & white Infrared gives both the locations and the people a slightly abstracted and ghostly appearance, calling into question the specificity of each situation. Sound is integral to this work as it references industrial, technological, subterranean sounds of coal mining histories. The soundtrack is constructed from field recordings captured in each location but used in a non-diegetic way that consciously avoids synch sound. Visually the work aims to cross the dreamlike counter-logic of Lynch with urban spaces that may evoke Tarkovsky, Lang’s Metropolis or drawings by Escher.

London-based artist/filmmaker Melanie Manchot employs photography, film, video and sound to form sustained enquiries into our individual and collective identities. The work interrogates and employs acts of care, resistance and communality to engage in discourses on social and political urgencies of our societies. Her films investigate innovative forms of storytelling with an acute understanding of the power of filmmaking to speak to urgent issues and have profound impact. Manchot’s first feature film, STEPHEN, commissioned by Liverpool Biennial, addresses gambling, substance misuse, recovery and mental health through narrative fiction and documentary. It had its cinematic release through Modern Film in 2024 and continues to be shown in exhibitions as a multi-channel installation. Manchot is working towards her second feature film: Mount Makalu. She is shortlisted for the Jarman Award, UK. Her work is held in many public collections and was presented in a major survey show at museum MAC/VAL, Paris 2018. Selected solo exhibitions: STEPHEN, The Exchange, Penzance, 2024; Alpine Diskomiks, Parafin, London, 2022; Black Snow White Out, Museum Lumen, Italy, 2021; Mountainworks (Montafon), InnSitu, Innsbruck, Austria (2019); Open Stage/Back Stage, Kunsthaus Pasquart, Switzerland (2019); She completed her MA in Photography at The Royal College of Art in London in 1992.

In Barefoot Birthdays on Unbreakable Glass, three women reflect on art creation, immigration, and their own mother-daughter relationships: relationships cut short, relationships evolving, relationships to treasure. Following insights of independent experiences of love and loss, they unite in one space to celebrate a new chapter of life and friendship.

Rebecca Jane Arthur (b.1984, Edinburgh) is a visual artist working predominantly with the moving image and text. Her works often transpire as experimental film portraits of people and places, and her interest lies in how personal stories depict a socio-political context and history, giving particular attention to class politics, education and women’s experiences. She is co-founder of the Brussels-based, artist-run production and distribution platform elephy, contributor to the online film criticism platform Sabzian, and a PhD in the Arts candidate at KASK & Conservatorium/School of Arts Ghent where she teaches in the visual arts department and lectures on art and feminist theory.

Filmed in Tokyo and Yokohama, of girls brings a variety of contemporary voices in resonance with two distinct female voices from Japan’s literary and political past. Both popular authors of their time—the period from the late 1920s on—Fumiko Hayashi and Yuriko Miyamoto both died young, in 1951. They each had a strong feminist and class consciousness as well as an impressive literary voice, but came from very different backgrounds and expressed their ideals through different paths. The power and contradictions in both these women’s words reverberate in dialogues and images of an intergenerational cast moving through the various spaces of knowledge, memory and culture, and reflect today’s struggles around gender, politics, and love

Wendelien van Oldenborgh develops works, whereby the cinematic format is used as a methodology for production and as the basic language for various forms of presentation, collaborating with participants in different scenarios, to co-produce the script. With these works, always shown in specially developed architectural settings, she shows widely in the art and museum context. Recent solo presentations include: unset on-set at Museum of Contemporary art Tokyo (MOT) 2022/23, tono lengua boca at CA2M Madrid 2019-20; Cinema Olanda, at the Dutch Pavilion in the 57th Venice Biennial 2017. Her work was recently included in Delinking and Relinking, collection presentation van Abbemuseum 2021-2026; Sonsbeek 20->24,, Arnhem 2021; of bread, wine, cars, security and peace… at Kunsthalle Wien, 2020; Chicago Architecture Biennial 2019, Singapore Biennial 2019. Her films Two Stones (2019) , Hier. (2021) and of girls (2023) premiered in the International Competition of FID Marseille.

The reports by civilian victims of the Russian and Belarusian occupation in Ukraine contain descriptions of torture and repression that appear to be systematic in nature. Taking those reports as a basis, a filmmaker born in Belarus investigates that systematic procedure on the streets of his Berlin neighbourhood. He also confronts the question of what this war of annihilation has to do with him and what responsibility he himself bears.

Born in Minsk, Belarus in 1987, he grew up in and around Berlin from the age of ten. From 2009 to 2012, he studied philosophy and economics at the University of Bayreuth. In 2015, he took up a film directing degree with a focus on documentary at the Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf. His short documentary Handbook, about the protests in Belarus in August 2020, won numerous awards, including Best Short Film at the IDFA in 2021. Mozhar’s most recent work is a short documentary Unwanted Kinship about the Russian war of extermination in Ukraine.

On the 24th of February 2022 Russia launched a large-scale invasion of Ukraine. In the beginning of April the first massive attack of Russian troops was repulsed, but Kyiv is still suffering by air strikes. There are traces of war on the streets of the city. Defensive structures are ready, because the enemy could attempt to occupy the capital of Ukraine again. Despite this the residents of Kyiv are trying to maintain habits of peaceful life, but the war continues.

Born in 1963. Graduated from the film director’s department of the State Institute of Theatre and cinema in 1985. Worked at the Olexander Dovzhenko State Film Studio in Kyiv, various governmental and non-governmental film and video studios. Shot a number of feature shorts, documentaries, ecological and promo films and musical video clips. He is member of the Ukrainian Filmmakers Union. His short feature movies and documentaries participated at the programs at the Ukrainian and international festivals. In 1996 Oleg Chorny and Gennady Khmaruk (w.b. 1972) has founded the non-profit creative unit “SAMPLED PICTURES”. A number of videos created by “SAMPLED PICTURES” were presented at the various film and video festivals, exhibitions and club screenings.

"Civilians. Invasion", created in 2023. The film documents the experiences of Ukrainians during the Russian aggression against Ukraine. This invasion led to extensive documentation by civilians, soldiers, and journalists, resulting in a wealth of photo and video materials that made their way onto social media platforms. While some of this content went viral through Telegram channels and other social networks, many photos and videos remained relatively unknown with minimal views. The film is structured around a specific storyline, starting from the initial days of the invasion and unfolding the events related to how people navigate a new reality: how to live and survive, the risks faced by civilians during the conflict, episodes of housing destruction, and stories of those who have lost their loved ones. In 2024 "Civilians. Invasion" represents Ukraine at the 60th Venice Biennale.

Andrii Rachynskyi and Daniil Revkovskyi are the Kharkiv (Ukraine) artists who are fusing different formats of artistic practices (installations, reenactment, video, archives), researching the contexts and landscapes of the industrial regions of Ukraine. They graduated from the Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Art with a degree in graphic design. Nominated for the PinchukArtCentre Prize in 2018, 2020 and 2022, the winners of the 2020 PinchukArtCentre Prize Audience Award for the project “Hooligans.” Allegro Prize 2022 winners. In 2024, Andrii Rachinskyi and Daniil Revkovskyi represent Ukraine at the 60th Venice Biennale. https://revkovskyirachynskyi.com

On the outskirts of the small town of Gommern, a heath garden has been inviting visitors for a walk since 1996. This was once the site of Ernst Reindel's rendering plant, who executed numerous people as an executioner during the Nazi era. The insistent camera view shows images in the here and now, while a stoic narrative voice recites original documents from Ernst Reindel's biography. What do we remember? How do we commemorate? What remains? The term "Begehung" is ambiguous in German. The title can be understood as "Begehung eines Ortes" (site visit) as well as a term from jurisprudence: "Begehung eines Verbrechens" (committing a crime). Since a corresponding translation in English seemed insufficient, we decided to keep the German title as the international title.

Thomas Brück was born in Zapopan (Mexico) in 1988. He studied time-based arts at the Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design in Halle and media art and cinematography at the Havana University of the Arts in Cuba in 2017. After graduating, he completed the Professional Media Master Class for artistic documentary shortfilm at the Werkleitz Gesellschaft in 2022 and was recipient of the Graduate Scholarship of the State of Saxony-Anhalt. In his artistic and cinematic work, he deals with concepts and constructions of reality and identity as well as the relationship between objectivity and aesthetic illusion. He is currently developing his first feature-length documentary film about historical and contemporary narratives of the appocalypse as a speculative vision of the upcoming end of the world. Thomas Brück lives and works in Halle and Leipzig.

Au cœur du Burundi, rivalités et extrémisme ethnique entrainent des milliers de pertes de vies humaines depuis l’indépendance. Dans cette folie meurtrière que nous avons traversée, il y a eu des protecteurs de la vie. Au péril de la leur, ils ont caché, protégées des amis et des voisins de l’autre ethnie.

Depuis 15 ans, Diane KANEZA, combine le cinéma, la communication audiovisuelle et le journalisme. Passionnée de l’image, elle l’utilise pour raconter des histoires de Chez elle. Diplômée du Master 2 Cinéma Documentaire de Création, elle en sort avec le Film « Mon Identité ». Une œuvre mémoire qui condense toute son expertise en matière d’acuité du regard documentaire, de capacités de création à partir du réel... Elle cofonde et dirige l’agence de communication MIKADIE Production, qui fait la réalisation et la production des films institutionnels/auteurs et des outils de communication, depuis 2012. Chargée de la programmation du Festival International du Cinéma et de l’Audiovisuel du Burundi de 2013 à 2015, directrice du festival en 2016. Elle allie la production des œuvres audiovisuelles et cinématographique, depuis 2020, à la direction de la chaine de télévision « Burundi News Publication Télévision » (BNP TV). Transmettre, partager ont toujours été son leitmov de par les magazines : « Événement Culturel de la Semaine », « Bonne réponse » et « Notre Terre, Notre Héritage » ; qu’elle développait déjà au sein de la télévision Nationale de 2006 à fin 2011, en tant que Réalisatrice et Animatrice TV. Professeur visiteur au sein de deux universités de Bujumbura (Université Lumière de Bujumbura et Université du Lac Tanganyika), elle enseigne la « Production Documentaire », dans la faculté des sciences de la communication, option communication et conception audiovisuelle.

Disappearance in Three Acts | Act One is an ethnography of violence reflecting on a history of conflict in Central Mexico. The video piece posits a decolonial approach to the visual representation of violence in Mexico, transporting us beyond the realm of suffering into a space for quiet contemplation as the violent terrain of occupation enters the frame. Following the pictorial European Romantic landscape tradition with its depiction of the uncontrollable power of nature, this piece is an investigation on enforced disappearance in rural Mexico, reclaiming undermined histories of everyday violence and economic struggle. The video piece appropriates visual motifs from 18th century European Romantic landscape tradition with its depiction of the uncontrollable power of nature and cataclysmic extremes, echoing violent occupation of land in rural Mexico. Through a poignant testimony of a kidnapping survivor, intertwined with the pastoral rural landscapes of her captivity, the video documents geographies of disappearance at the threshold of detectability.

Victor Arroyo is a video artist working in the crossfield between cinema and contemporary art. His films are informed by various modes of listening and seeing, emerging from long periods of observation and documentation. His practice is situated at the intersection between aesthetics, knowledge production and community-based research, often concerned with the encounters and tensions between lived experiences, knowledge regimes and the politics of display. His work is regularly programmed in museums and festivals internationally, including Kasseler Dokfest, Sheffield Doc/Fest, RIDM, Canadian Centre for Architecture CCA, BIENALSUR, Cinemateca de Bogotá, Cinémathèque Québécoise, Cinémathèque Pacific, Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino, Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Center for Contemporary Arts Santa Fe, among others. Born in Mexico in 1977, and based in Montréal, Canada.