movie category
ENCOUNTER

Foc Kan, Night of the Hunter

  • France
  • 2011
  • fr
  • en
  • 13

It was a carefree time for some, the age of Le Palace and Les Bains-Douches, in this 1980s Paris where celebs would mix with unknown Parisian fauna. This is the milieu where Foc Kan started as a night photographer. After studying literature, he joined this world of futility and personality portraits done cowboy-style (meaning with a flash, in hyperfocal). But behind the ready humour the job requires, there's a real kindness. And beyond the images that often have the same fate as their models, and disappear into oblivion, appear the timeless images of bored girls, or of the homeless sleeping rough in the city. As in Charles Laughton's film, appearances are sometimes deceptive, and Foc Kan's flash leaves no room for shadows.

It was a carefree time for some, the age of Le Palace and Les Bains-Douches, in this 1980s Paris where celebs would mix with unknown Parisian fauna. This is the milieu where Foc Kan started as a night photographer. After studying literature, he joined this world of futility and personality portraits done cowboy-style (meaning with a flash, in hyperfocal). But behind the ready humour the job requires, there's a real kindness. And beyond the images that often have the same fate as their models, and disappear into oblivion, appear the timeless images of bored girls, or of the homeless sleeping rough in the city. As in Charles Laughton's film, appearances are sometimes deceptive, and Foc Kan's flash leaves no room for shadows.

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Foc Kan, Night of the Hunter
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CREATIVITY

Gilbert Garcin: Anything Could Happen...

  • France
  • 2015
  • fr
  • en
  • 52
Direction: Ralf Kämpfe

Retired, Gilbert Garcin photographs in his garden shed. His world is appealing, he is internationally recognized: a fast-track fairy tale to prove that the world of art is not a closed shop. Garcin is no naïve painter, but a life far from art studies has certainly preserved in him a certain freshness. Nonetheless, we can place him between Teun Hocks and Chema Madoz, photographers with surrealist humour. He prefers to point to Buster Keaton, and his photographic double also evokes Monsieur Hulot. Post-retirement, anything could happen!

Retired, Gilbert Garcin photographs in his garden shed. His world is appealing, he is internationally recognized: a fast-track fairy tale to prove that the world of art is not a closed shop. Garcin is no naïve painter, but a life far from art studies has certainly preserved in him a certain freshness. Nonetheless, we can place him between Teun Hocks and Chema Madoz, photographers with surrealist humour. He prefers to point to Buster Keaton, and his photographic double also evokes Monsieur Hulot. Post-retirement, anything could happen!

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Gilbert Garcin: Anything Could Happen...
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movie category
INSPIRATION

Dolorès Marat | Dolorès

  • France
  • 2022
  • fr
  • en
  • 70

Against all odds, Dolorès Marat quietly built a personal body of work on the fringes of fashion and the world of contemporary art. Timeless images, evanescent but persistent, like so many interior landscapes bathed in solitude. Working through an alphabet primer from Avignon (at the blue hour) to Ventoux, from the apartment-studio to hanging the "Cascades" exhibition, the director follows in the footsteps of the frugal Dolorès, shy yet bold, always sincere.

Against all odds, Dolorès Marat quietly built a personal body of work on the fringes of fashion and the world of contemporary art. Timeless images, evanescent but persistent, like so many interior landscapes bathed in solitude. Working through an alphabet primer from Avignon (at the blue hour) to Ventoux, from the apartment-studio to hanging the "Cascades" exhibition, the director follows in the footsteps of the frugal Dolorès, shy yet bold, always sincere.

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Dolorès Marat | Dolorès
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movie category
SKILL

The cyanotype (with maté) by Carlos Barrantes

  • France
  • 2022
  • es
  • en
  • 34

Carlos Barrantes, master of printing and historical processes, takes us step by step through cyanotypes. From his Perpignan laboratory, he carefully explains his preparations and manipulations, giving an artist's perspective on his choices and decisions. Artist and artisan, he is as visually sensitive as the paper he uses is to light. And he sublimates each photograph into a unique print.

Carlos Barrantes, master of printing and historical processes, takes us step by step through cyanotypes. From his Perpignan laboratory, he carefully explains his preparations and manipulations, giving an artist's perspective on his choices and decisions. Artist and artisan, he is as visually sensitive as the paper he uses is to light. And he sublimates each photograph into a unique print.

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The cyanotype (with maté) by Carlos Barrantes
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MEET

F for Fontcuberta

  • Espagne
  • 2005
  • ca
  • en
  • 57

The real is linked to photography. But it's a deceptive link. Photomontages, staging, angles… the truth is but an illusion. Joan Fontcuberta knows this, and he pokes fun at it with a very Catalan irony and with great erudition. F for Fontcuberta is a "documenter", stepping up the photographer's game by real-fake interviews. In discovering here the forgotten Professor Ameisenhaufen, or the poor cosmonaut Istochnikov, we are seized by doubt: not about whether this is true or false, but why do we want to believe it? We are seized once more, by a liberating laugh at this Fontcuberta who addresses us with a mischievous wink.

The real is linked to photography. But it's a deceptive link. Photomontages, staging, angles… the truth is but an illusion. Joan Fontcuberta knows this, and he pokes fun at it with a very Catalan irony and with great erudition. F for Fontcuberta is a "documenter", stepping up the photographer's game by real-fake interviews. In discovering here the forgotten Professor Ameisenhaufen, or the poor cosmonaut Istochnikov, we are seized by doubt: not about whether this is true or false, but why do we want to believe it? We are seized once more, by a liberating laugh at this Fontcuberta who addresses us with a mischievous wink.

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F for Fontcuberta
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