FANTÔMES

by Olivier FOUCHARD
1999-2013 / 16mm & Super 8mm / b&w / sound / 1S / 16' 15




In FANTÔMES, Olivier FOUCHARD brings a new variation to the genre film, he invents the "cinematheque film".

We all know kung fu films, road movies, samurai movies, musical comedies, vampire films, westerns, fantasy, etc... but the "cinematheque film"... not yet... the cinephiles are dumbstruck.

Besides, Olivier FOUCHARD (and others) had already made "lab films", "bathroom films" almost totally indifferent toward audiovisual authority and shown to a privileged few, strangely, we have seen them appear here and there in festivals, galleries, magazines, radio shows, TV, internet (etc...), "lab" rubrics and editorial sections, perhaps we will soon see a "bathroom" editorial section appear, but that's another story...

Indeed, and in a more serious vein, Olivier FOUCHARD often saves on his studio shelves and in the attic short ends and copies of his films, as well as others' films, on which he occasionally undertakes editing exercises.

And here is one: among others, we can recognize images from DIDAM, PTKHO by Mahine ROUHI, FLAMEN'CO and LA PROMENADE BLEUE.

As for the soundtrack: we will recognize, among others, excerpts from NOSFERATU, DER PHANTOM DIE NACHT by Werner HERZOG and VAMPYR by Carl Theodore DREYER. Made in various photochemical film formats (super-8, 16 mm and 35 mm) and numerous sound formats (VHS, Sepmag16 and digital file), the resulting work is an original 16mm film that was digitized at the artisanal laboratory L'Abominable.

At the time, it was difficult to preserve footage that had been tinted and mixed with black-and-white, now this seems possible.

As this film, somewhere between nightmare and lucid dream, also evokes the history of filmic artifacts and ghosts and of their possible disparitions into dark and humid corners unsuitable for the preservation of these fragile memories, the piece will without a doubt someday be transferred to a 35 mm copy, whose internegative we will be able to entrust to a ... Cinematheque.

(Stéfano Ceccarelli)

1 PRINT IN DISTRIBUTION


distribution format Digital file on server
speed 25 fps
sound sound
original language French & German
rental fee 56,00 €