Régina Demina
L’Avalanche - Film - 51min - 2015
presented as part of the exhibition Panorama 17
L’Avalanche is a medium-length fiction film, a cinematic snapshot about the complex relations between a young woman and two older people. At the centre of their exchanges is creativity.
Lu, a hard-up singer living in the city, is having an imaginary love affair with Avril, the woman putting her up. This both inspires and blights her life, while her host encourages her tenderness out of both inclination and narcissism. “What feeds me destroys me.” Lu’s fascination with Avril ends up preventing any kind of communication. After a great struggle, Lu finally tears herself away from the apartment.
A bit lost, a bit venal, she goes to pose for Léo, a brooding, silent artist, at his house in some remote spot in the Alps. This is the beginning of another confinement. A strange, extremely restrained bond develops between the two, a mixture of crystallisation and fetishism, illustrating the complex relations between the artist and his muse.
In L’Avalanche, sound is very present and organic. It helps create a muffled, disturbing atmosphere. Songs serve as a counterpoint. They are integrated into the film’s narrative and the acting of the characters, as in a traditional musical, the only difference being that here the music is lo-fi electronic music and indie pop.
Régina Demina
Régina Demina was born in Kaliningrad in Russia, arrived in France at the age of four and grew up between two cultures: that of her parents and that of her country of adoption. A trained actress and dancer, her artistic sensibility led her very early to collaborate with well-established artists on the French scene. Self-taught, in parallel she made short films, between fiction and contemporary art, which have been presented at the Pagode in Paris, at Asvoff in Milan, at the Coté court festival in Pantin, at the Femmes de Créteil film festival and at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris. In 2015, she had her first solo show, Chrisler rose, at the galerie l’Hermitage. She presented an installation created from her film L’Avalanche, produced during her first year at Le Fresnoy. She then created ALMA, a performance piece without actors. She is now working on an adaptation of Autoportrait by Edouard Levé.
