LE MAL DES ARDENTS

France

Documentary

A stunned crowd faces a fire.
The threat has no name, a diffuse anguish spreads.
Fear needs to be conjured, fire must be turned into a sign.

Directed by: Alice Brygo
Written by: Alice Brygo, Paulo Gatabase
Produced by: Luc-Jérôme Bailleul
Cinematography: Alice Brygo
Editing: Alice Brygo
Original Score: Fatma Pneumonia, Paul Lajus
Sound: Paul Lajus, M’Hand Abadou Djezaira, Clémence Dufieux, Benjamin Poilane, Alice Brygo
Visual Effects: Nathan Ghali
Cast: Clara Dessertine

Statement of the director(s):
The film proposes an immersive experience surrounding the spectators of a fire, diving into the realm of their different interpretations. Always off-screen, the fire becomes a signifier inflated by the imagination, which crystallises a certain climate of societal tension.
The project started with the images I filmed of the people facing the fire of Notre-Dame de Paris. The emotions that spread through the crowd and the mass behaviors I witnessed were then reconstructed using photogrammetry and sound staging. The reconstitution of this moment through the film testifies an atmosphere that is still contemporary: an era marked by a globalised loss of reference points between information and rumor, by the rise of nationalism and identity-based radicalisations, and by the media that which only stir up conflicts for their own profit. It is a reflection of my own stupor among this anxious crowd, an attempt to grasp this climate of group psychosis that seems to be spreading on the networks, in France, and elsewhere.

Production:
Le Fresnoy
www.lefresnoy.net

World Sales:
Square Eyes
www.squareeyesfilm.com

Selected at Seminci – Valladolid International Film Festival