Directing workshop with Yann Gonzalez

Professor:
Yann Gonzalez

The most crucial challenge in working on the question of theatricality was to create links between the students of the Master ECAL/HEAD, and those of La Manufacture - Stage directing Master. Theatricality is organic to my cinephilia and, indeed, to my films. By showing the students extracts from opposite ends of the spectrum, from Chantal Akerman's Toute une nuit to John Waters' Desperate Living, from Daniel Schmid's Cette nuit ou jamais to a clip from Palmbomen II, I wanted to convey this idea of a plural theatricality, by turns playful and grotesque, hypnotic and lyrical. In short, theatricality as a tool for freedom. And that's what we set out to do, all of us together, during this short workshop week: to create bursts of freedom within the limits of a collective exercise with no resources - two days of preparation and reflection, two days of filming, one day of editing. Starting with a basic constraint and narrative, two groups of six students opened up their most unbridled imaginations and shared roles and functions with a group spirit that was a pleasure to behold.

Yann Gonzalez, director