Gwendal Sartre
À l'Origine une Forteresse - Film - 1h5min - 2015
presented as part of the exhibition Panorama 17
Each of the two characters in this film embodies a temporality. The young woman inhabits passing time, the time we all share, the time of life and of death. Suffering from an unknown illness, her body grows tired over time, imparting its rhythm to the film. Her father, a scientist, exists in a relative time, another temporal dimension. His clothes and behaviour do not change. I didn’t want the film to dwell on this point, avoiding any kind of psychology or fascination with the scientist, sometimes even playing lightly on the absurdity of the situations.
In this film physical and mathematical theories exist to bring forth characters and figures representing self-transcendence. Its dramatic, romantic character like in the fictive potential of the research. Intuitions, observations – this is what I wanted to be able to film.
I think of these characters as two worlds: ancient and modern. They are opposed to but also nourish each other, being deeply linked. Like a perception of an order that is ending and a muted disquiet about the one to come. But it is more the simple story of a father and his daughter. I was in continuous dialogue with my actors during the preparation of the film, around the directions to take. They are not professionals, more my entourage. From the writing to the montage, they are like projections of my anxieties, of what I love and what unsettles me.
Gwendal Sartre
2014 DNSEP Art, École supérieure d’art
et de design Marseille-Méditerranée
2016 FID Marseille - Sélection en Ecran
Parallèle « Mouvement », pour le film
Conjurer l’angoisse par l’énumération
2012 Institute Alliance Française (FIAF),
« Vive la jeunesse ! Young French Directors »
pour le film Song Song, New York,
États-Unis
2012 FID Marseille - Compétition Prix
Premier, for the film Song Song with special distinction of the jury
