Gaëlle Rouard
Wednesday 31 January, 2024 7:30 pm
France
2022, 70 min
16mm

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Gaëlle Rouard hosted by Simon Field.

Based in Grenoble, France, Gaëlle Rouard is an alchemist making films since the early 90’s, specialising in film processing.

Sonic Cinema

Darkness, Darkness, Burning Bright

Wednesday 31 January, 2024 7:30 pm
Cost: £12
Address:
Cafe OTO,
18-22 Ashwin St, London E8 3DL

Sonic Cinema presents a unique screening of Gaëlle Rouard’s atmospheric film diptych, Darkness, Darkness, Burning Bright projected by the artist from her personal 16mm print.

Unfolding across two acts, Prelude and Oraison, Darkness Darkness, Burning Bright is a personal and poetic work full of expressive solarized nightscapes and pastoral unreality. The film draws us into a  crepuscular landscape, where animals and plants appear luminous and rendered in chiaroscuro, with the movements playing out through a series of tableau vivant composed from the combination of photochemically manipulated still and moving images. Produced using found sounds and drawing on the traditions of musique concrète and cinéma pour l’oreille (cinema for the ear), Rouard’s soundtrack oscillates between supporting ambience and pronounced narrative emphasis.

Programmed by Oliver Dickens for Sonic Cinema. Special thanks to Isabelle Manci & Angela Blanc at the Institut français.

Gaëlle Rouard will also present the Darkness, Darkness, Burning Bright diptych with BEEF at Cube Microplex (Bristol) on 3rd February and at Star & Shadow (Newcastle) on 7th February.

Generously supported by Institute Francais Royaume-Uni

Simon Field

Simon Field is a producer and film programmer based in the London. He was Director of Cinema at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (London), from 1988 until 1996 when he became Director of the International Film Festival Rotterdam until 2004. In 2005 he joined Keith Griffiths’ UK-based Illuminations Films and as a producer has been primarily involved with the films of the Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul, director of Memoria (2021). From 1970 to 1987 he was editor of the irregular film journal Afterimage devoted to new and radical cinema. The Visible Press recently published the Afterimage Reader.

Gaëlle Rouard
Gaëlle Rouard

Gaëlle Rouard (France) is a filmmaker and artist based in Grenoble.

Since 1991 she has been making films, specialising in photochemical processing and the possibilities of live multi-projection. She ran the Atelier MTK DIY film laboratory in Grenoble from 1996 to 2006, and is a longtime member of Le 102, rue d’Alembert, a venue dedicated to experimental music and film. Gaëlle’s work has been presented internationally at festivals and art centres such as the Centre Pompidou Paris, the International Film Festival Rotterdam, Syros SIFF Film Festival and Brisbane Institute of Modern Art. Her latest film Darkness, Darkness, Burning Bright (2022) has received awards in various festivals, including the Istanbul International Film Festival Award, the Experimental Competition Award at the Curtas de Vila do Conde and Best Sound Design at the Ann Arbor Film Festival (2023).