Les Bêtes Sauvages

 

 

28 October 15

 

1/4
Cécile Fontaine, Safari Land,1996, film still, 16mm-film, 10:00 min, Courtesy Light Cone<br>
Cécile Fontaine, Safari Land,1996, film still, 16mm-film, 10:00 min, Courtesy Light Cone
Grégoire Motte and Eléonore Saintagnan, Les Bêtes Sauvages, 2015, film still, video, color, sound, 36:00 min, coproduction with red shoes / Michigan Films, Courtesy the artists<br>
Grégoire Motte and Eléonore Saintagnan, Les Bêtes Sauvages, 2015, film still, video, color, sound, 36:00 min, coproduction with red shoes / Michigan Films, Courtesy the artists
Apichatpong Weerasethakul: VAMPIRE, 2008, film still; video, color, sound, 19:00 min., Courtesy Kick the Machine Films
Apichatpong Weerasethakul: VAMPIRE, 2008, film still; video, color, sound, 19:00 min., Courtesy Kick the Machine Films
Emily Vey Duke and Cooper Battersby, Lesser Apes, 2011, film still, HD video, color, sound, 12:43 min, Courtesy the artists<br>
Emily Vey Duke and Cooper Battersby, Lesser Apes, 2011, film still, HD video, color, sound, 12:43 min, Courtesy the artists

 

Various forms of interaction between human and nonhuman creatures are explored across this programme of four short films within Welcome to the Jungle, which evolves in a crescendo, turning the spectator into witnesses of the intensification of all sorts of gestures.

Les Bêtes Sauvages explores the utopian and dystopian states in which humans and animals meet – from Cécile Fontaine's visually striking yet disturbing use of safari footage, to Éléonore Saintagnan and Grégoire Motte's investigation of the transformation of animal history by human beings; Apichatpong Weerasethakul's nightmarish chase of a fabulous bird, and to Cooper Battersby's and Emily Vey Duke's intense love story between a primatologist and a bonobo.

Cécile Fontaine, Safari Land, 1996

1. To observe attentively and secretly (someone, an animal) – to spy a suspect person: spy – follow someone to spy them – trail, track, monitor – Animal that spies its prey – to keep an eye on – To be aware, alert.
2. Observe attentively... scrutinise... (from the French dictionary Le Nouveau Petit Robert).

Éléonore Saintagnan and Grégoire Motte, Les Bêtes Sauvages, 2015

In three short episodes closely associated, Éléonore Saintagnan and Grégoire Motte dig into the myths associated to the rose-ringed parakeets of Brussels, the journey done by smugglers crossing of the French-Belgian border with a fox, and the hippos of Pablo Escobar, observing how the history of these animals has been transformed, affected and re-written by human hands.

Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Vampire, 2008

VAMPIRE is a night vision or a dreamlike journey—suspended, outlandish and uncanny at times—in search of Nok Phii, a strange mythical bird that feeds itself on the blood of other animals, and who lives or has lived, between Thailand and Burma.

Cooper Battersby and Emily Vey Duke, Lesser Apes, 2011

Lesser Apes tells the story of a love affair between a primatologist, Farrah, and a female bonobo ape, Meema. Bonobos are the species with which humans share the most DNA, but unlike our species, they are matriarchal, live without conflict, and are unabashedly sexual. A paean to perversion, the film combines animation, live action and song to challenge attitudes about sex, language and our relationship to nature.

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