Events

Un lac

with Philippe Grandrieux

When:
Friday, May 13, 2016, 7:00pm - 7:00pm
Description:

Philippe Grandrieux’s work is dark and unsettling, addressing grand themes through deceptively meager stories. Spectators and critics are divided, but those who are willing to forego narrative and abandon themselves to the drama of cinematic material like light, bodies, grain, montage, rhythm, and sound are hailing Grandrieux’s films as a reinvention of cinema. Join us for the Chicago premieres of three recent works, along with a special live performance by Callahan McGovern, a student at the Boston Conservatory. Grandrieux will be present at all four events.

Un lac takes place in an unknown country of snow and dense forests, where an isolated family lives. The brother, a woodcutter, is an ecstatic, prey to epileptic fits, open to the nature that surrounds him, and terribly close to his younger sister. Their lives are disrupted by the arrival of a young stranger. Grandrieux’s third feature is a tragedy marked by calm and quiet interrupted by little dialogue; the scenes are somehow connected by deep currents invisible on the surface, embodying Grandrieux’s belief that “the power of cinema is that it enables us to live within a world, as the dreamer lives within his dream. Thus, we walk in the image.” Followed by a conversation between Philippe Grandrieux and Raymond Bellour.

(Philippe Grandrieux, France, 2009, 85 min., 35mm print courtesy of the Harvard Film Archive)

White Epilepsy Solo Performance by Callahan McGovern
Sun, May 15, 2-5pm
Bartlett Arts Rehearsal Space, 5640 S. University Ave.

Grandrieux's recent work consists of both a performance and a film. Join us on Sunday for a continuous solo performance of White Epilepsy by Callahan McGovern, a student at the Boston conservatory. The performance is supported by the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

Philippe Grandrieux is an artist who works in feature film, experimental television, video art, documentary, and museum and gallery installation. His films have screened at the Locarno Film Festival, the Venice Film Festival, the Festival du nouveau cinéma of Montréal, and the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Film retrospectives, installations, and performances have taken place around the world, including at the Centre Pompidou Metz, Lincoln Center, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. He is currently a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study in Cambridge, MA.

The Philippe Grandrieux residency was curated by Dominique Bluher, Lecturer and Director of MA Studies in the Department of Cinema and Media Studies.

In partnership with the Department of Cinema and Media Studies; the France Chicago Center; the Department of Theater and Performance Studies; the Arts, Science & Culture Initiative; Critical Inquiry; and the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality’s Counter Cinema/Counter Media Project.