Film cycle
Friday 15 Sep 2023 from 5pm to 9:30pm
Saturday 16 Sep 2023 from 11am to 9pm
Sunday 17 Sep 2023 from 11am to 6pm
Free entry
Free access, without registration
© Martin Argyroglo
A cycle of looped films to be discovered throughout the Échelle Humaine Festival.
→ Pacific Club, by Valentin Noujaim, 2023, mixed media, colour, sound, 16 min
In the obscure depths of La Défense, that modern Tower of Babel where the threads of finance intertwine, there once resided an enigmatic, almost unknown place: the Pacific Club. It was here, in 1979, that one of the first nightclubs to open its doors to young Arabs from the suburbs was born. The club, vibrant with new rhythms, welcomed these souls in search of escape, love and communion.
It is through the voice of Azedine, eighteen years old at the time, that the forgotten history of this ghostly temple and those who were lost within it resurfaces today. Beyond appearances, the glamour of the Pacific Club concealed a tragedy. The greedy patrons of this illusory euphoria were overtaken by the demons of racism, drugs, heroin and Aids, a dull curse that mowed down these lives. The nightclub, silent witness to this macabre dance, itself became the reflection of a dark era.
Shot in 16mm, the film emanates a hazy aura, as if the images themselves, like the missing customers, were floating between two worlds. The laughter, the bursts of voices, all now fade into a distant echo, on the edge of an elusive world.
Pacific Club is the first part of a trilogy dedicated to the La Défense district. The second film, To Exist Under Permanent Suspicion, explores the fate of a businesswoman played by Kayije Kagame. The third film, Demons to Diamonds, is scheduled for release in 2024, along with a series of sculptures.
Produced by Manon Messiant, Iliade & Films
With Azedine Benabdelmoumene, Julien Mezence, Taos Bertrand
Music by Space Afrika
VFX by Nicolas Pirus
→ Caressing Machine, by Marta Popivoda, 2017, video, black and white, sound, 18 min
A group of employees of a company at a team-building workshop. The voice of an inner monologue migrates from one body to another. Is it the enthusiasm of an empowered self or job uncertainty, which drives one's performance at work? The mise-en-scène of the self is shadowed by an automated work environment. The layers touch and diverge, questioning work-life rhythms in contemporary capitalism. Ultimately, the bodies clump in a caressing motion, desiring for time without purpose or interest.
Director: Marta Popivoda
Screenplay: Bojana Cvejić, Marta Popivoda
Director of photography: Maja Radošević
Editing: Jelena Maksimović
Sound: Jakov Munižaba
Contributing dramaturg: Ana Vujanović
Production: Theory at Work, Serbia
With the support of Laboratoires d'Aubervilliers (France), The Norwegian Artistic Research Programme, NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
→ Le Fantôme de l'Impero (teaser), by Tony Regazzoni, 2022, video, colour, sound, 10 min
"Le Fantôme de l'Impero" is a video produced as a 'teaser' for a 'dramusical' project currently being written. It was shot in the remains of Europe's largest nightclub in the early 90s: the "Ultimo Impero" (The Last Empire), built on the outskirts of Turin. This "temple of the night", which is an architectural monument of post-modernist leisure architecture, is the ultimate re-appropriation of the archetypes of Antiquity, displacing the original models in an increasingly uninhibited way. "Ultimo Impero" sounds like a premonition today, given the tragic fate that befell the club, following in the footsteps of most of these establishments in rural or suburban areas.
→ Cœur brillant, by Tarek Lakhrissi, 2023, mixed technique, colour, sound, 14 min
Jahid runs away in the night from a dangerous motorcyclist and takes refuge in a strangely quiet museum. There he encounters unusual characters and extraordinary events. Throughout this initiatory journey, Jahid confronts the improbable, and goes through the exploration of beauty, political awareness as well as the surrounding danger... Conceived as a psychedelic tale and an initiatory journey, Cœur Brillant suggests that the sublime and the need to create a community in the midst of disaster are potential responses to the violence of hierarchies, while twisting the dominant codes of cinema.
→ Taxidermisez-moi, by Marie Losier, 2021, 16mm on video, colour, sound, 11 min
Commissioned by the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, Marie Losier's playful, dreamlike film is a concentration of her poetic universe. Armed with her 16mm camera like a magic wand, the director gives new life to animals frozen in eternity. Packed with references, "Taxidermisez-moi" is a filigree of the idea that artists and animals share the same condition, threatened by the same weapon. Producing beauty as a final act of resistance in the face of "the totally well-founded hypothesis of a planet without monkeys and wild animals", going "to the places of art that are the places where we remember this loss" (Jean-Christophe Bailly), forces us, the spectators, to think about this future world where the beauty of the living can only be found in the heart of a museum."
Claire Lasolle
Directed by Marie Losier
With David Legrand, Jean-Pierre Petit, Simon Fravega, François Chaignaud, Éloïse Decazes
Image: Marie Losier
Screenplay : Marie Losier, David Legrand
Editing: Marie Losier
Music: Eloïse Decazes
Production : Marie Losier
Distribution : Collectif Jeune Cinéma
In the obscure depths of La Défense, that modern Tower of Babel where the threads of finance intertwine, there once resided an enigmatic, almost unknown place: the Pacific Club. It was here, in 1979, that one of the first nightclubs to open its doors to young Arabs from the suburbs was born. The club, vibrant with new rhythms, welcomed these souls in search of escape, love and communion.
It is through the voice of Azedine, eighteen years old at the time, that the forgotten history of this ghostly temple and those who were lost within it resurfaces today. Beyond appearances, the glamour of the Pacific Club concealed a tragedy. The greedy patrons of this illusory euphoria were overtaken by the demons of racism, drugs, heroin and Aids, a dull curse that mowed down these lives. The nightclub, silent witness to this macabre dance, itself became the reflection of a dark era.
Shot in 16mm, the film emanates a hazy aura, as if the images themselves, like the missing customers, were floating between two worlds. The laughter, the bursts of voices, all now fade into a distant echo, on the edge of an elusive world.
Pacific Club is the first part of a trilogy dedicated to the La Défense district. The second film, To Exist Under Permanent Suspicion, explores the fate of a businesswoman played by Kayije Kagame. The third film, Demons to Diamonds, is scheduled for release in 2024, along with a series of sculptures.
Produced by Manon Messiant, Iliade & Films
With Azedine Benabdelmoumene, Julien Mezence, Taos Bertrand
Music by Space Afrika
VFX by Nicolas Pirus
→ Caressing Machine, by Marta Popivoda, 2017, video, black and white, sound, 18 min
A group of employees of a company at a team-building workshop. The voice of an inner monologue migrates from one body to another. Is it the enthusiasm of an empowered self or job uncertainty, which drives one's performance at work? The mise-en-scène of the self is shadowed by an automated work environment. The layers touch and diverge, questioning work-life rhythms in contemporary capitalism. Ultimately, the bodies clump in a caressing motion, desiring for time without purpose or interest.
Director: Marta Popivoda
Screenplay: Bojana Cvejić, Marta Popivoda
Director of photography: Maja Radošević
Editing: Jelena Maksimović
Sound: Jakov Munižaba
Contributing dramaturg: Ana Vujanović
Production: Theory at Work, Serbia
With the support of Laboratoires d'Aubervilliers (France), The Norwegian Artistic Research Programme, NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
→ Le Fantôme de l'Impero (teaser), by Tony Regazzoni, 2022, video, colour, sound, 10 min
"Le Fantôme de l'Impero" is a video produced as a 'teaser' for a 'dramusical' project currently being written. It was shot in the remains of Europe's largest nightclub in the early 90s: the "Ultimo Impero" (The Last Empire), built on the outskirts of Turin. This "temple of the night", which is an architectural monument of post-modernist leisure architecture, is the ultimate re-appropriation of the archetypes of Antiquity, displacing the original models in an increasingly uninhibited way. "Ultimo Impero" sounds like a premonition today, given the tragic fate that befell the club, following in the footsteps of most of these establishments in rural or suburban areas.
→ Cœur brillant, by Tarek Lakhrissi, 2023, mixed technique, colour, sound, 14 min
Jahid runs away in the night from a dangerous motorcyclist and takes refuge in a strangely quiet museum. There he encounters unusual characters and extraordinary events. Throughout this initiatory journey, Jahid confronts the improbable, and goes through the exploration of beauty, political awareness as well as the surrounding danger... Conceived as a psychedelic tale and an initiatory journey, Cœur Brillant suggests that the sublime and the need to create a community in the midst of disaster are potential responses to the violence of hierarchies, while twisting the dominant codes of cinema.
→ Taxidermisez-moi, by Marie Losier, 2021, 16mm on video, colour, sound, 11 min
Commissioned by the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, Marie Losier's playful, dreamlike film is a concentration of her poetic universe. Armed with her 16mm camera like a magic wand, the director gives new life to animals frozen in eternity. Packed with references, "Taxidermisez-moi" is a filigree of the idea that artists and animals share the same condition, threatened by the same weapon. Producing beauty as a final act of resistance in the face of "the totally well-founded hypothesis of a planet without monkeys and wild animals", going "to the places of art that are the places where we remember this loss" (Jean-Christophe Bailly), forces us, the spectators, to think about this future world where the beauty of the living can only be found in the heart of a museum."
Claire Lasolle
Directed by Marie Losier
With David Legrand, Jean-Pierre Petit, Simon Fravega, François Chaignaud, Éloïse Decazes
Image: Marie Losier
Screenplay : Marie Losier, David Legrand
Editing: Marie Losier
Music: Eloïse Decazes
Production : Marie Losier
Distribution : Collectif Jeune Cinéma
Pacific Club, Valentin Noujaim, 2023, mixed media, colour, sound, 16 min
Taxidermisez-moi, Marie Losier, 2021, 16mm, colour, sound, 11 min
Cœur brillant, Tarek Lakhrissi, 2023, mixed media, colour, sound, 14 min