Thinking Places is a series of nine scientific films, made with the following principle: coupling, through the language of cinema, a speech given by a scientist that works on inhabited space and a place this scientist has chosen because it has changed him/her. This method gives birth to a two-character – a thinker-actor and a place – cinematographic dialogue.
Thanks to this very simple starting point, the scientific personality of each scholar shows itself in these films within constraint-free, unlimited duration (from less than 30 min to over 1 hour) interviews. A face-to-face between human and geographic individualities can then be set up. Based on a one-take, one-sequence shot as an also very simple cinematographic reference, the films reveal a large-scope diversity simultaneously generated by each element of the couple (scientist, place) and the couple itself. The places an their ‘authors’ can then talk to us in a serene, freed-from-academic-routine conversation and address complex topics: How can we deal with empirical realities without illusion or prejudice? Where can we find theoretical leverages to analyse contemporary societies? How can we transform a lifetime itinerary into a resource for science? How can we comprehend actors, objects and environments together? …And, last but not least, this formidable question: What is a place?
Viewers of these films can reach a better reflexivity about how to work on space and spatiality. They will be prompted to explore the promising relationships between cinematographic image and geographicity.
The Four Rules
Each film is based on four rules:
- The person and the place must be shot simultaneously.
- The film includes one sequence shot only.
- The shooting is limited to one take.
- The filmed place is what the filmed person is talking about.
The Films
- Béatrice Collignon/Ottawa
- Jean-François Staszak/Boston
- John Agnew/Belfast
- Franco Farinelli/Florence
- Paola Viganò/Kortrijk + Antwerp
- Michel Lussault/Lyon
- Augustin Berque/Imintanoute
- Susanne Rau/Gran Canaria
- Jacques Lévy/Seoul
The Team
Camera: Thomas Bataille, Sophie Cadet
Sound: Farzaneh Bahrami, Ogier Maitre
Original Music: Arnaud Laurens
Editing: Julien Téphany
Production : Chôros (Barbara Laurent-Lucchetti, Luana Huguenin, EPFL)
Director : Jacques Lévy
The series has an online free-access in English and in French.
You can follow the same four rules and add new films to the Thinking Places series. Submit your film at choros@epfl.ch.
