Oscar Club - V1    

/inès panizzi

Tell us a bit about the location of your film.

The film was shot in a Monaco theatre called Le théâtre Princesse Grace. Monaco is a very particular place. I was going there every day to reach my art school located on top of a giant rock above the sea; It was like going into a different world. It’s very small and yet it’s like a separate country, even the light is different there. And every morning I saw this theatre which had recently changed, becoming half theatre, half cinema. But outside nothing had changed, yet inside there was an invisible separation between the left and the right side, both belong to different owners. It was like a cold war there! 

(One day I had to leave my plants at the reception desk, which was also separated by an invisible border like the desks of two students during a test, and I was only allowed to fill one side of the desk, the theatre side. I wasn't even allowed to overflow by one inch. )So I started to think about the relationship between cinema and theatre and decided that my fiction will take place in the theatre and will play with cinematographic references. 

They allowed us to live there for more than two weeks during the day, and it was a very strange feeling shooting fictional characters living in a space whilst also living in the space ourselves, in reality. (We even took naps on those yellow velvet seats and used the microwave to heat our food on set). I was also moving to a new house during that period so it was really disturbing, the theatre became like my stable anchor place. 

Tell us a bit about the location of the film screening.

I chose a space very important to me. It was the space in which I had my 2nd, 3rd and 5th year degree shows, and it was also my workspace during my final year.

All the pieces that were shown in this room were linked and so I wanted to amplify this feeling of totality through the installation. The plants which were part of the ecosystem in the film were dispersed like they had been during the year in my workspace, like a reminiscence. So it felt like home in this room. I also invited people to occupy the space, to sit on the chairs I'd built and I offered them some tea.