FICTIONS FRONTALIÈRES
programme
Seeing the border through fiction.
Thomas Guillot
Salvi Quando Scende La Notte, 2016, 20 mn
Production Le Fresnoy Studio national des arts contemporains
Salvi Quando Scende La Notte is a would-be remake of The Leopard, the novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, comparing the historical and contemporary situation of the island of Lampedusa and that novel about the end of a world. The world of a Sicilian aristocracy which is not that far removed from our dusty, antiquated Europe. Through interplays of transpositions and appropriations, the motifs are constantly re-distributed, put in perspective, re-used, and contaminated by the island’s situation. The writing of the film literally creates a link between the fable of “The Leopard” and the island of Sicily. An old man tells us the recent and ancient history of the island of Lampedusa. His words, his presence and the traces he summons up transports the film in an epic movement which deals with what is off-screen and the political subtext of this land which has always been a place of passage and hospitality. TG
Florent Meng
Dunes of Deletes, 2017, 42 mn
Filmed along the wall on the U.S.-Mexican border, Dunes of Deletes is a dystopia questioning our relationship to landscape and lands of migrations. As a hybrid project, this documentary fiction, with its unusual form, is at once a presentation and a making-of of its own filming. In Dunes of Deletes, the border between Mexico and the United States has disappeared. The wall which gives it material form is replaced by an invisible and insurmountable obstacle. Everything that was around the border has vanished, leaving the desert to spread to towns and cities. The film follows the journey of two Mexicans who decide to leave Los Angeles and go back to the land of their ancestors, on the other side of the invisible wall.