
Film-Assemblage
2013-…
Collaborative film, 7 minutes.
The aim of Film-Assemblage is to create a filmic object that reveals commonalities across human experiences. It explores the spaces between a supposed standardisation fuelled by globalisation and the so-called clash of civilisations that flows from irreconcilable cultural differences.
This project brings together original films from a variety of countries and genres (cinema, documentary, video, animated film, amateur film, choreography, performance art, etc.) into a collaborative assemblage.
Each contributor films pre-determined events (e.g. eating, greetings, silence) that must appear at certain defined moments. When these films are assembled and presented together simultaneously, the constraints prescribed by the composition framework give rise to moments where images converge and resonate, where “visual chords” emerge from the visual cacophony.
The basic events presented in each film explore a broad spectrum of experiences. The film-assemblage allows meanings of these experiences to unfold, thus is an invitation to new interpretations.
The potential for these interpretations is found in “vertical” alignments of simultaneous events across “horizontal” narratives presented together (e.g. on a split-screen or in a video installation), which may resonate as consonant or dissonant chords. These notions of horizontal composition, vertical resonance, consonance, dissonance, and chords are borrowed from principles of tonal harmony.
The process therefore encourages each contributor to conceive each basic event as an element of meaning and form in a film-assemblage that goes beyond the scope of their own film.
Thus far, two films have been created. Students from the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers Multimédia Balla Fasséké de Bamako (Mali) and pupils from the primary school of Zidock (French Guiana) filmed the events specified in the composition framework to write and produce “Jaa” (Mali) and “Pẽ’ĩ ‘a Basile Zidock pe” (French Guiana).
Events specified in the composition framework
- Where the action takes place (0:00)
- Someone walking (0:20)
- People greeting each other (0:40)
- Musician(s) playing (1:00)
- Religion (1:20)
- Someone eating (1:40)
- People working (2:00)
- Someone communicating (2:20)
- Law or security officers (2:40)
- Affection between two people (3:00)
- A transaction (3:20)
- Struggle (3:20)
- Complete silence (4:00)
- Death (4:20)
- Something breaking (4:40)
- Someone having a wash (5:00)
- A tree (5:20)
- People dancing (5:40)
- Red colour (6:00)
- A body (slow tracking shot, 6:20)
- Someone saying “no” (in his/her language, 6:40)
- A face (close up, 7:00)
