LESDITES TERRES

In April 2004, the Bassin Houiller Lorrain coal mine ceased all activities leading to the closure of its last well in Moselle, the last French well. This film is the culmination of a poetic expression that explores the limits of perception of reality.

We dive into the past of the memory of an event that continues until today and whose atoms still impress the whole landscape...

What has happened in my life over the past forty years? Look back at a past in images, confronted with the present. As a journey into the depths of my memory, I try to guide the viewer through the meanders of memory. The dream allows us to find the memory slag. When we evoke the memory, we make a mental journey into the past but also into the future. Memory is a dynamic process that changes information, meaning the memory itself. This film is the result of an inaccurate, piecemeal, disgressive and sincere recollection.

How can time travellers influence the course of the world before its collapse? The 19th century, a pivotal period in industrial development, is also that of scientific inventions, literary and artistic creation. These men who have marked their time have recorded their words on the necrophone, a device to record the voice of the dead... Perhaps there are answers to the world’s problems?

A way to enter into a form of thought. The future is already realized, but it can still be changed.

Wandering character , in subective camera, a territory where once grown strawberries, the variety "Madame Moutot".

In 2003, during a trip to Japan, I filmed about ten hours of rushes with a Mini DV camcorder, thinking of making a film that I never managed to finish. The work of time opens the mind: I dive back into the images, digitize them and by looking at them I finally find a form, bathed by the writings of Chris Marker and Nicolas Bouvier on Tokyo. “Faces” was born sixteen years later. It is an invitation to immerse yourself in the heart of a city and its inhabitants. A form of audio and visual narrative, punctuated by only three intertitles, takes the viewer into an ecstatic state between dream and reality.

A man walks through landscapes to take the measure of a world, a painting...

Is time still for contemplation? The geological time is too slow for us to perceive, except some mutations of the landscape caused by men... Film to locate a territory, walk it to understand how time passes. Watch the effects of the weather and immerse yourself in a country almost without men, to better penetrate the image. Slow down the fear of time that passes to let go contemplating its concrete effects on nature.

Like flipped pages, look... The images look at each other... To look is to keep twice... The layered images can be kept… Two paths in a memory, like ants on a tree…

Metti Franzen was born in 1927 in Rumelange, Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Former iron miner in the galleries of the Walert mine, he is one of the last witnesses of underground mining work in the Grand Duchy. The Walert Mine ceased operations on 31 December 1963 and was converted into a museum in 1973. Metti Franzen contributed, along with others, to the foundation of what is now the National Museum of Iron Mines. He was then and for more than thirty years an attentive and passionate guide of the MNM.

Félix, a young Iranian veterinarian arrived in France in 1967 to discover the practice in rural areas. He meets Martial, a confirmed veterinarian who will train him. A friendship of more than 40 years will unite them. Through Félix’s life, his misadventures and successes, we discover part of the evolution of French society, but also the problems faced by an immigrant worker and his family to integrate into society.

composites views from a botanic garden.

Four films without a man. The decor is a territory between nature and civilization, a memory of a bygone world where animals address passers-by in chosen terms, where philosophers experiment in their hut, where castles resist invaders and where dark omens lie on the damp soil of the undergrowth.

A first-year class at the Art School talks about themselves. They talk about their futures, their visions of current events, their loves... The portrait of a certain generation "Z" is unfolding.

The place where the souls of the righteous enjoy eternal bliss. A snapshot on the edge of a stream, like a pause out of time. The trembling film of the water wrinkles and distorts the images reflected in it. A sound of breathing, some insects and birds signal their presence. “It is a green hole where a river sings...”