Stéphanie Roland

Podesta Island exists according to Google Earth. Podesta Island does not exist according to Wikipedia. Does it really exist? In a hyperconnected and mapped world, are there still unknown areas? The film Podesta Island paints the portrait of a controversial phantom island by confronting documentary sources with the narratives and legends inspired by this island. This exploration, where satellite imagery and live action intertwine, brings us closer to Terra Incognita and celebrates the imaginary geography.

Alex and Noémie would like to have a child. But their plans are turned upside down when Alex's mother, Suzanne, has contracted "semantic dementia", a fatal neurodegenerative disease that affects her behavior.

The breath of the machine fills the air, where the singing can flow. Nina stands in front of the wiggling robot. The soft bodies measure up themselves, sometimes harmonize. The breaths dilate the organs, which swell and fold; transmute the synthetic movement into vital impetus and the vulva into mouth, which inflates until it spreads.

Between the dazzling first shot—burning debris falling from a satellite entering the atmosphere—and the final sequence merging underwater images with others generated by a specially created camera, a path is sketched out which, in the manner of a reverse science-fiction journey, leads from space exploration to a cemetery in the middle of the ocean.