A portrait of the human health system, directors Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor (Leviathan, Caniba) continue their ethnographic filmmaking project, reaching unseen depths in human bodies and the health care infrastructure that struggles to maintain them. Revolutionary micro-cameras free the filmmakers to wander through the human body without limit, slithering through intestines and arteries no differently than the hallways and cavities of labyrinthian hospitals. Guided only by the scarce fragments of conversations of doctors and nurses, a picture forms of exhausted doctors, traumatized staff, and an institution crumbling under the magnitude of its work.
Unflinching in its approach, the film is a survey of twin systems, the human body and health care infrastructure, inextricably tied together and unexpectedly similar in structure. The abject horror of open surgery gives way to the abstract beauty of clinical medical imaging, as the film repurposes them to create a harrowingly immersive cinematic experience.
France/USA/Switzerland
2022
In French with English subtitles
Book Tickets
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Erika Chow + Blue Giant
Revered pianist Hiromi Uehar composed the score for this electrifying jazz anime, about a young man who wants to be the next John Coltrane. Before the film, tenor sax Erika Chow will lead a quartet through selections from the soundtrack.
Image: © 2023 BLUE GIANT Movie project ©2013 Shinichi Ishizuka, Shogakukan
Ghost Elephants
Everyone's favourite German adventurer, Werner Herzog goes on the hunt for the largest land mammal on the planet, the fabled "ghost elephant" of the Angolan highlands -- that may, or may not, exist.
The Things You Kill
Thirty-something professor Ali leads an apparently stable life. But when his ailing mother dies under ambiguous circumstances, he starts to unravel, resulting in an act that shatters our understanding of his person.
Miroirs No. 3
Following a car crash that kills her boyfriend, piano student Laura is physically unhurt but emotionally distraught. A local woman takes her in, but she gradually realizes she's in the midst of an eerie, mysterious family situation.
Image: © Schramm Film A4 Kopie
Analogue Revolution: How Feminist Media Changed the World
Bonnie Thompson, Bonnie Sherr Klein, Moira Simpson, Zainub Verjee, Judy Rebick are among the Canadian feminist creatives who recount tales from the trenches, the gory glory days of 1970s, 80s and 90s, before the internet changed everything.
Credits
Producer
Valentina Novati, Charles Gillibert, Pauline Gygax, Max Karli, Véréna Paravel, Lucien Castaing-Taylor
Cinematography
Véréna Paravel, Lucien Castaing-Taylor
Editor
Véréna Paravel, Lucien Castaing-Taylor
Directors
Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor
Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor collaborate as filmmakers at Harvard University’s Sensory Ethnography Laboratory. Their films and installations have been screened at BAFICI, the Berlinale, CPH:DOX, Toronto International Film Festival, and New York Film Festival. Recently, their work joined the permanent collections of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the British Museum, and has been exhibited at Tate Modern, Centre Pompidou, and Berlin Kunsthalle. Their film Leviathan (2013) received many awards, including the FIPRESCI Award at Locarno International Film Festival. Their documentary Caniba (2017) won the Special Jury Award at the 74th Venice Film Festival, among other awards.
Filmography: Leviathan (2012); Somniloquies (2017); Caniba (2017)