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‘In 1947, British engineers destroyed the North Sea island of Heligoland (home of a Nazi naval fortification) with the help of 4000 tons of wartime ammunition. The blast — the largest single non-nuclear explosive detonation until the 1985 Minor Scale detonation at White Sands Missile Range — released about 3.2 kilotons of TNT-equivalent energy.’ — gizmodo

 

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‘Michael J. Oliver, American citizen born in Lithuania, fond of numismatics, decided once to found a new nation. He got in touch with British authorities to put up a tax-free state in the Turks and Caicos Islands, and of course failed with this. He found in an atlas that there were two atolls in formation at the north of the territory of Tonga, known as Minerva since a ship named this way had wrecked because of them. Oliver and a friend, Morris Bud Davis, bought a ship in May 1972, engaged some men, and with this brought some sand on Minerva, to make it become a real island. When there was enough sand to make it possible to walk on Minerva, they proclaimed the Republic, Davis becoming president, and Olivier making money with the coins (with goddess Minerva) he made for his state. Tuphou IV of Tonga was rather unhappy to see this republic be born in his kingdom, and sent the Tongan army there, where the soldiers took the flags of the new republic and replaced them with the Tongan flag. The battle was soon resolved when an ocean storm washed away the island’s sand and submerged the atoll underwater for the next ten years. The reef continues to pop up every 10 years, do its stuff, and then go down again. That island falls under Tongan jurisdiction; as soon as it is up, the king orders the Tongan flag to be planted there. Sometimes it’s too late…’ — crwflags.com

 

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‘With a name like Dead Man’s Island, you might think that the small protrusion of rock was doomed all along. But the tiny island at the entrance to the San Pedro harbor was so steeped in romantic lore that many Southern Californians — powerless to stop the dynamite and steam shovels — greeted its demise in 1928 with sorrow. Dead Man’s Island was named for the shallow graves dug into its flat top. Various legends give different accounts of who was buried first: the last male survivor of San Nicolas Island, an Indian named Black Hawk; an English sailor who died while anchored at San Pedro; a smuggler who washed ashore on the island and died there of thirst or hunger. No one knows for certain which (if any) is true, but it’s clear that by the 1830s the local, Spanish-speaking population knew the outcrop as Isla de Los Muertos. In photos, it appears deceptively small; in fact, it measured at least 800 feet long and 250 feet wide. Rising 55 feet above the surface and separated from the San Pedro bluffs by nearly a mile of open water, Dead Man’s Island was the bay’s most conspicuous landform. Unfortunately, tidal forces started carving away at the island. As crumbling rock exposed buried coffins, the bodies were moved — the six servicemen to the Presidio in San Francisco, and the civilians to San Pedro’s Harbor View Cemetery. As part of a program of extensive harbor improvements, the U.S. government decided to remove the island wholesale in 1928.’ — KCET

 

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‘The phantom Sandy Island has been blamed on an error by the crew of a whaling ship from 1876, the Velocity, which originally recorded the land mass, known as Sandy Island, midway between Australia and the French-governed New Caledonia. Though the island has existed on maps for hundreds of years, a group of Australian scientists went searching for it in the Coral Sea last month and could not find it. Shaun Higgins, a pictorial librarian at Auckland Museum who was intrigued by the mystery, now believes he has solved the case. He says the ship’s master aboard the Velocity reported a series of “heavy breakers” and some “sandy islets” on an admiralty chart and that the unusual features spotted by the crew were copied over time as an island. “As far as I can tell, the island was recorded by the whaling ship the Velocity,” Mr Higgins told ABC radio. “My supposition is that they simply recorded a hazard at the time. They might have recorded a low-lying reef or thought they saw a reef. They could have been in the wrong place. There is all number of possibilities. But what we do have is a dotted shape on the map that’s been recorded at that time and it appears it’s simply been copied over time.”’ — The Telegraph

 

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‘Rising seas, caused by global warming, have for the first time washed an inhabited island off the face of the Earth. The obliteration of Lohachara Island, in India’s part of the Sundarbans where the Ganges and the Brahmaputra rivers empty into the Bay of Bengal, marks the moment when one of the most apocalyptic predictions of environmentalists and climate scientists has started coming true. Until now the Carteret Islands off Papua New Guinea were expected to be the first populated ones to disappear, in about eight years’ time, but Lohachara has beaten them to the dubious distinction. Refugees from the vanished Lohachara island and its disappearing neighbor Ghoramara island have fled to Sagar, but this island has already lost 7,500 acres of land to the sea. In all, a dozen islands, home to 70,000 people, are in danger of being submerged by the rising seas.’ — The Independent

 

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‘Rose Island was a short-lived micronation on a platform in the Adriatic Sea, seven miles off the coast of Rimini, Italy. In 1964, Italian engineer Giorgio Rosa built the 400-meter-square platform, supported by nine strong pylons on the seabed. Reportedly, this platform eventually housed a restaurant, a bar, a night club, a souvenir shop, a post office, and perhaps a radio station. The artificial island declared independence on 24 June 1968, under the Esperanto name “Insulo de la Rozoj”. Stamps, currency, and a flag were produced. The Italian government sent troops to crush the rebellion. Two carabinieri and two inspectors of finances landed on the “Isole delle Rose” and took over the just-born state. The platform’s Council of Government sent a telegram to protest against the violation of its sovereignty, and the injury inflicted on local tourism by such a military occupation, but this was ignored. The island was destroyed by the Italian Navy.’ — crwflags.com

 

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‘Bermeja, a tiny uninhabited island to the northwest of the Yucatán Peninsula, seems to have disappeared. One century, it’s sitting pretty at 22°33′ N, 91°22 E in the Gulf of Mexico; the next, it’s vanished, confounding maritime investigations and aerial surveys alike. And the Mexican people want to know where it went. Theories abound regarding Bermeja’s mysterious fate. Was it a casualty of global warming and rising sea levels? Did an underwater earthquake shake it clean off the radar? Or did the CIA blow it up, as conspiracy theorists suggest, with a view to expanding US sovereignty in the oil-rich Gulf? In 1997 the Mexican and US governments negotiated a treaty to divide Hoyos de Dona, a stretch of international waters taking in the area where Bermeja was once believed to be located. Seized by a renewed interest in the long-lost island’s existence, the Mexican government sent an expedition out to find it. The search yielded nothing and the treaty was signed. Three official investigations took place in 2009. All three used the most whizz-bang technologies at their disposal, leaving no wave unturned and no depth unplunged. Yet Bermeja remained elusive. According to Irasema Alcántara, from the Geography Institute at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), “We’ve encountered documents containing very precise descriptions of Bermeja’s existence. There are photographs taken of the island that look like no other island within a thousand miles. On this basis we firmly believe that the island did or even does exist.”‘ — Lonely Planet

 

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‘Pleasure Island was an amusement park located in Wakefield, Massachusetts. The park, billed as the “Disneyland of the Northeast”, was in business from 1959 to 1969. During its short existence it went through several owners and was financially handicapped by New England’s relatively short summers. Covering 80 acres (320,000 m2), the park featured a plethora of rides and other attractions, including the Space Rocket ride, the Pirate Ride, the Moby-Dick ride (which featured a spouting mechanical whale rising from the depths), the Wreck of the Hesperus (dark ride), the Old Chisholm Trail (dark ride), theme restaurants, a shopping area, an arcade, mini-golf (from 1967), a carousel, Monkey Island, and many others. Actors would stage mock gunfights in the Western City or threaten to attack riders on the boat rides. The park’s “Old Smokey Line” was a narrow-gauge railroad using equipment leased from the Edaville Railroad. Another park feature was the Show Bowl, where performers such as Ricky Nelson, Michael Landon, The Modernaires, the Three Stooges, Clayton Moore, Don Ameche, and Cesar Romero appeared.’ — collaged

 

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‘Whale Skate Island in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands was a tiny dot of land in the vast Pacific, about 10 to 15 acres in size. It was covered with vegetation, nesting seabirds, Hawaiian monk seals and turtles laying eggs. It no longer exists. “That island in the course of 20 years has completely disappeared,” said Beth Flint, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wildlife biologist for the Pacific Remote Island Refuges. “It washed away.”‘ — heatisonline.org

 

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‘The World, the ambitiously-constructed archipelago of islands shaped like the countries of the globe, is sinking back into the sea, according to evidence cited before a property tribunal. The islands were intended to be developed with tailor-made hotel complexes and luxury villas, and sold to millionaires. They are off the coast of Dubai and accessible by yacht or motor boat. Now their sands are eroding and the navigational channels between them are silting up, the British lawyer for a company bringing a case against the state-run developer, Nakheel, has told judges. “The islands are gradually falling back into the sea,” Richard Wilmot-Smith QC, for Penguin Marine, said. The evidence showed “erosion and deterioration of The World islands”, he added. With all but one of the islands still uninhabited – Greenland – and that one a showpiece owned by the ruler of Dubai, most of the development plans have been brought to a crashing halt by the financial crisis. Penguin claim that work on the islands has “effectively stopped”. Mr Wilmot-Smith described the project as “dead”.’ — The Telegraph

 

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‘Holland Island was originally settled in the 1600s, taking its name from early colonist Daniel Holland, the original purchaser of the property from the Dorchester County Sheriff. By 1850, the first community of fishing and farming families developed on the island. By 1910, the island had about 360 residents, making it one of the largest inhabited islands in the Chesapeake Bay. The island community had 70 homes, stores and other buildings. It had its own post office, two-room school with two teachers, a church, baseball team, community center, and a doctor. The wind and tide began to seriously erode the west side of the island, where most of the houses were located, in 1914. This forced the inhabitants to move to the mainland. Many disassembled their houses and other structures and took them to the mainland, predominantly Crisfield. Attempts to protect the island by building stone walls were unsuccessful. The last family left the island in 1918, when a tropical storm damaged the island’s church. A few of the former residents continued living on the island during the fishing season until 1922, when the church was moved to Fairmount, Maryland. In October 2010, the last remaining house on Holland Island, built in 1888, collapsed.’ — collaged

 

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With its lagoon, sandy beach and ramshackle wooden buildings, Challis Island looks like the perfect place for a pirate to hide from the law. But this island is in land-locked Cambridgeshire, not the Caribbean. And its multi-millionaire owner James Challis may be forced to walk the plank – by planners – because he did not apply for permission to build the island’s fantasy village. They have ordered him to pull it all down. Mr Challis, 29, spent several million pounds creating the artificial island in the middle of the lake on his family’s country estate five miles north of Cambridge, and transforming it into his own pirate-themed paradise. Mr Challis said it had been created in memory of his grandfather John Dickerson, who acquired the 60-acre site in the 1970s for the extraction of sand and gravel. Mr Dickerson had started work on converting the lake into an area to be used for recreation by his family and had built a boat house there, but he died in 1999. The family is expected to hear the fate of the island within weeks. South Cambridgeshire district council said: “We appreciate Mr. Challis’s efforts and creativity, but the law is the law, and I’m sorry to say that the destruction of his fantasy island is all but assured.”‘ — Daily Mail

 

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‘Deshima, known as Dejima in Japanese, was a small artificial island in Nagasaki Bay (approximately 150 feet by 500 feet) on the southwestern Japanese island of Kyushu. From 1641 to 1845, Deshima served as the sole conduit of trade between Europe and Japan, and during the period of self-imposed Japanese seclusion (approximately 1639-1854) was Japan’s only major link to the European world. Though Dutch merchants were generally confined to the island, it nonetheless served as a conduit of considerable culture exchange in both directions. The exchanges ranged from hydrangeas to knowledge of electricity and paralleled a similar exchange passing between the Japanese and Chinese merchants, who were also permitted to trade at Deshima under similar controlled circumstances. It was destroyed during the modernization of Nagasaki harbor in the 20th century.’ — World History Connected

 

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DragonLegend2013: I just finish winning a battle in dinosaur island and collected some bones, after an hour in my iPad the game reload and the island is not there anymore. Is there a bug? Can someone advise? Thanks

Balgruff: Check your storage, maybe you accidentally bought everything and it’s in your storage now. Either that, or it’s cause the iOS version is reportably unstable.

DragonLegend2013: I had check the storage, it is not inside. Try resetting my iPad and still not inside. Please can you help? I need dinosaur island to win the dinosaur dragon. Thanks.

CaseyBarker: That happened to me also please someone help i want to get the dinosaurs

RubyDiamond: There are Dinosaur Island in iOS device ? Why i don’t know it… it don’t shown up ?

CaseyBarker: Guys if someone knows whats happening please post any info you have I can’t figure out how to get the island back

 

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‘The British explorer Richard Sowa built his own floating island off the east coast of Mexico in 1998. Spiral Island was created from more than 250,000 plastic bottles collected in large fishing nets. Sowa put a bamboo flooring over the bottles, and carried sand and plants onto Spiral Island. The empty, lightweight bottles floated on the top of the Gulf of Mexico and supported Sowa’s home and garden. Spiral Island was destroyed in 2005 by Hurricane Emily.’ — NatGeo

 

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‘Map-readers knew about Brazil long before America was discovered; but they didn’t think of it as a giant country on a distant continent. Brazil, also known by the name Hy-Brasil, was a small, mist-shrouded island in the North Atlantic, not too far off Ireland’s west coast. Only, Hy-Brasil never existed. Shown here on a Mercator map dating from 1623, it was one of many phantom islands that haunted marine cartography, sometimes for centuries, before more accurate observational techniques (and ultimately satellite photography) eliminated them all. Hy-Brasil’s first recorded appearance on a map dates from around 1325, as Bracile on a portolan map. In 1497, Spanish diplomat Pedro de Ayala reports home that John Cabot, the first European to visit North America since the Vikings in the 11th century, had made his journey with “the men from Bristol who found Brasil.” Sometimes fantasy became indistinguishable from fact. Hy-Brasil was rumoured to be continuously obscured by mist, except for one day every seven years. It must have been on one of those days in 1674 that captain John Nisbet, piercing a sea fog, anchored before the island, and sent a party of four ashore. The amazed sailors spent an entire day on Hy-Brasil, meeting an wizened old man – an Irish monk? – who provided them with gold and silver. A follow-up expedition by a captain Alexander Johnson also found Hy-Brasil, and confirmed captain Nisbet’s findings. But thereafter, Hy-Brasil reverted to its elusive self. When shown on the map, its location was usually to the west or southwest of Ireland, but Hy-Brasil has also been located in the Azores, and shown as either one or two separate islands. As it’s very hard to disprove a negative, Hy-Brasil’s unfindability per se did not cause it to disappear off the map – only to shrink. When last observed on a nautical chart, as late as 1865, it had become the diminutive Brasil Rock. The phantom island’s last appeareance took place in 1872, seven years after its removal from official nautical charts. The traveller T.J. Westropp, having already seen the island twice before, had brought a shipload of witnesses (including his mother) to verify his sighting of Hy-Brasil. The party did indeed see the island appear – and then disappear, never to be seen again. A fitting end for a phantom island.’ — big think.com

 

 

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p.s. Hey. ** tomk, Hi. Yeah, it’s a thrill to see your novel being so well received. I remember how long and hard you worked on it and your worries about it during the writing. An amazing success story. I’ve never been to Miami. The only places I’ve been in Florida are Orlando to do the amusement parks and some beach town on the panhandle where they’d filmed ‘The Truman Show’. So you tell me the scoop once you’re a familiar. The Song Cave book, which I think is out now, is a collection of interviews from Michael Silverblatt’s Bookworm show. Oh, yeah, about Quorn? That’s pretty alluring, I must say. On the search. Thanks, T ** Steve Erickson, I hope you enjoyed his work. Editing is going extremely well. We’re on our 4th cut of the film, and it’s getting very close to being locked in. So far I’m fine with sleeping and so on. Planning to see ‘Asteroid City’ this weekend. I just read about that documentary somewhere. Everyone, Steve E has reviewed a new documentary film about MIDNIGHT COWBOY here. ** _Black_Acrylic, Very pleased that his spell worked on you. ** Dominik, Hi!!! I’ve got optimism to spare so anytime you need some, I’m your oyster. Yes, re: shitstorm. The last time I talked about such things here the person in question found out and threw a fit that made things even worse, so I should stay relatively mum, but, yes, it never ends. That could be a useful love, say if you’re holding a piece of toast or if you are in proximity to someone truly horrible. Love making your day in Austria so pleasant it makes ‘The Sound of Music’ seem like ‘Hellraiser’, G. ** Misanthrope, So people say. The animation in the trailer irritates me, but I am going to try. Hope you secured the appointment. Oops: modem. ** Jamie, Hi, J. Good. Editing is going really well. I’m glad you liked the films so much. Nice screening there, for sure. I’m going to investigate those films. Sweet. I’m doing nothing apart from editing and just eating and doing a little blog/email. I saw Sparks live, and they were sublime. I’m going to get out and do shit this weekend. Great about the football novella! Sunken love, me. ** Jeff J, Hi. Hm, no, I don’t think I have favorites. I think just kind of like them in general. Okay, great about Saturday. I know ‘Clean/Shaven’, but I think that’s his only film of his that I know. Safdie Bros, ugh. Interesting to see the possible source though. ** Nick., Hi, Nick.! Awesome about your day. I’m just editing practically nonstop. Great stuff, but unfortunately not very interesting in description. Stay great until next visit. ** Cody Goodnight, I’m good. I think you can just test any of them. They’re short, best to watch a few in a row. The Wharton: nice. She’s terrific. Big fave of Bret Easton Ellis. Yes, I’ve read a few. I did a post on one of her books. I’m too rushing this morning to go find it. Great day! ** Brian, Hey, Brian. Cool about the funds. Understood. I think ‘Annette’, as interesting as it is, might be Carax’s least good film. He’s generally really strong. I definitely recommend investigating his work. Yeah, funny about the sentence replication. This blog is a trip. ** Right. I’m hoping you would like to read about islands that died today. See you tomorrow.

Philippe Cote lived and worked in Paris. He made over 20 Super 8 films beginning in 1998 which were screened in festivals and film series in France and other countries. He curated experimental films programs and was on the selection commitee of the Festival International des Cinemas Differents et Experimentaux in Paris. He was a member of the film cooperative L’Etna, an artisanal and member-run film development laboratory founded in 1997 in Paris

A filmmaker with a sensitive and radical vision, his earlier works focused on the themes of the body, matter, light and color with techniques that range from cameraless filmmaking to painting on celluloid. After 2005, he moved towards a poetic and contemplative approach to documentaries and travel films.

For Philippe Cote, cinema revealed itself as a space of self-invention and of the other one, plastic exploration of the limits of subjectivity and an attempt to establish links. In a desire to take a permanent risk, his work wove and transformed from one film to another, seeking what occurs in the gaze’s movement, constantly transformed by the prints. — Violeta Salvatierra

 

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Stills

 

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Further

Philippe Cote | Cinéaste
Philippe Cote @ Facebook
Philippe Cote @ Dérives autour du cinéma
Philippe Cope @ l’Etna
Philippe Cote @ Collectif Jeune Cinéma
Carte blanche à Philippe Cote : Cinéma visionnaire, cinéma poétique

 

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Notes on a film in the making (2008)
by Philippe Cote

I look at my images, in search of an experience, a story, a feeling… perhaps a sketch of a future film.

The shadows

An alley filmed at night, a line of light is reflected on the ground and exposes a certain part of the image. A young woman enters it, with a hesitant gait. Throughout the journey, it reveals itself and escapes our gaze, passes into the light or disappears into the dark.

Other shots of narrow streets framed by houses, buildings… vanishing lines where ghostly silhouettes are born and vanish, of an elsewhere that is not in the present of the filming.

Certain motifs return… a residence, an entrance, a small balcony. Through these identical returns, a curious reversal takes place where these images seem to challenge us, to look at us from a place, from a time that escapes us. In the dark, in the distance, a screen of light, in which spectra with ill-defined contours are inscribed before dissolving. On the front, in the shade, we guess a presence… texture of a mirror reflection, which we revisit later in these passing shadows which are reflected on the water, an upward movement begins the crossing of the mirror and reveals the surrounding landscape: a river, banks, a city.

Lighting plans

A street vendor, people surround his stall cluttered with heterogeneous objects. There is a clock. Onlookers wander around, without a precise trajectory, leaving and entering the field. The merchant grabs a pair of sunglasses, puts them on. Finally, he spits violently on the ground.

A boy repairs a bicycle.

In the background, behind him, appear children, teenagers, out of school, who gradually invade the space occupied by the young man… duration redefines a new division in the image, displaces its meaning. This foliation inside the image is found in this shot where a religious painting appears on a wall and next to it the unfolding of a street, a place of passage.

The edges

A coffee counter, two people installed on the left edge of the frame… for the rest, our gaze stumbles on the back wall… these people discuss passionately with one or more people who have remained outside the frame.

A boat, three young men leaning on their elbows, we can’t make out their faces… there, they are inscribed on the right edge of the frame, looking in the same direction, taking photos, towards places that remain secret to us.

A market, tools, objects placed on the ground. Filmed from above, on one side, we can see half of the saleswoman’s face, on the other the hand and arm of a buyer… in the center the place of the transaction, immutable, disturbed for a moment by a person who crouches… the shot ends abruptly with the end of the reel.

Presence of the off-screen, duration, strangeness of the composition there, transport of the center of gravity towards the edges, open up new adventures of the gaze.

Your loneliness

Self-portrait of the filmmaker.

Lying down, the camera frames her body leaving an empty space at her side. The speed of recording imparts a jerky movement to his breathing, comparable to shortness of breath. He gets up abruptly to sit on the edge of the bed before disappearing into the white of the overexposure of the end of the reel.

The inside

Inside a bedroom, a small open skylight in one of the walls of the room lets us guess something else, differently, in the form of the blue of the sky, the white of the buildings. Then, in an upward movement, our gaze slowly advances towards this opening, a desirous attempt to abolish the distance that separates us from this elsewhere.

A window is open, a person enters the frame, leans over, then closes it… at the end, only a thin thread of light remains.

The trace

The detail of a wall: a white square with a tortuous surface, then another square, in black and white and in color, cracked, indented… posters, announcing a religious festival, partially block the surface.

A wall overlooks a street. We distinguish a fresco: a Christ on the cross and the name of the street Castelar. It receives the projected shadows of passers-by, surrounding houses… the shadows move with the sun.

A degraded wall and an opaque window.
Screen surface that supports shadows, pages open to the world traversed by the traces of time, limits dotted with various openings like so many calls to future promises.

Epilogue

This Sunday, at a fair, I acquired an old batch of super 8 films, on one of the boxes was written Andalusia.

 

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14 of Philippe Cote’s 28 films

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Émergences (1999-2004)
‘Resulting from performance projections of films painted directly on film. The film literally confronts pure abstraction and the unrolling of the film loaded with materials.’ — Philippe Cote

 

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Ether (2003)
‘Liquefied images are transformed into substances of volatile light. The eye has no hold on shapes with an unstable contour. By successive generations, these gradually rush into different states of color until they become incarnated in the completion of an image.’ — Collectif Jeune Cinema

 

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L’en dedans / les ombres (2005)
‘Crossing of the frame and passage inside.
The image is transformed, reconstructed and revealed by concrete and unstable movements, elementary forms, lines of force, points of light and deep blacks.
The film oscillates between constituents of the image (grain, line …) and its representation, revealing underground and forgotten figures.’ — Derives

 

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L’ange du monde (2006)
‘The angle of the world allows us to see the real as an outer and inner presence at the same time, an opaque otherness, yet capable of becoming an intimate space. These incommensurable lengths and distances of an interior that opens up: The mysterious movement of the clouds, the cadence of the waves against the light, or the silent slippage of a barely identifiable human silhouette, everything seems transfigured, derealized and reinvented by light in a poetic world that evokes the paintings of Turner or Friedrich, the writings of Poe or Baudelaire.’ — Violeta Salvatierra

 

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Des nuages aux fêlures de la terre (2007)
Du noir et blanc, puis une teinte entre couleur et noir et blanc
Vert bronze
Du grain de la gravure de la photo c’est fixe puis on sait qu’on regarde du cinéma
Le temps de l’invention de l’image photographique nous est à nouveau présent nous revient en mémoire
Ether toujours
Géométrie de la terre et géométrie du nuage le sens des nuages
Ça donne envie de lire des pages sur les nuages on en a écrit tant de toutes sortes littérature art plastique philosophie science cinéma et d’autres
Tous les domaines de la rêverie et de la réflexion humaine ont été innervés par ces vagues voluptueuses
Tous ont été surfaces reflétantes miroitantes
Le cinéma seul montre ces voyages ces défilements
Le bleu soudain et l’étoile à la lucarne
Géométrie des formes lignes rayures triangles rectangles noirs blancs
Monts noirs monts blancs en miroir reflets du ciel
Puissance du gris nuances des commencements
Cîmes
Regards tendus corps de la lumière silhouettes furtives
Effacements successifs
On peut ouvrir grand les paupières
Si l’on veut.
— Catherine Bareau

 

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Va regarde (2008)
‘… I go to Thailand and then to northern Laos (Luang Prabang then normally further north), surely then to Cambodia. At the origin of this departure, it is an aspiration in a renewal of my cinema, in the search for new lights, new spaces, new relationships … I initiated it with my film L ‘ ANGLE OF THE WORLD turned on the islands dear to Jean Epstein, others will follow … Let’s say to a cinema closer to the poetic documentary: to be there and to look, to inscribe the duration, not to try to force the things that present themselves. I am dreaming of the images of Peter Hutton (Images of Asian Music and André Sauvage (iconoclastic documentary filmmaker, who knew how to film these countries with love and humanity in the 1930s). Touching this point of contact between a personal reality (let us say of the order of the intimate) and this otherness present in front of oneself Space of the others) …’ — Philippe Cote, May 2006

 

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Va regarde 2 (2009)
At the origin of these departures,
There is aspiration in a renewal
Of my cinema, in the search for new lights,
New spaces, new relationships …
Towards a cinema closer to the poetic documentary:
Be there and watch, record the duration, not
Seek to force the things that present themselves …
— Philippe Cote, May 2006

 

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19, Espíritu Santo (Andalucía) (2010)
‘Originally, there were the words you wrote to me to initiate the images to make, far away, alone, over there in Seville and Andalusia. Then, after a silent first montage …: “I wanted (this is the first time that it happens to me in front of one of your films) to hear voices. In spite of myself I thought of a sonorous montage, made of long silent beaches alternating with a few moments of voice, words, and perhaps a little sound, rustling. It seemed to me that this way of sounding the film gives a presence (presences) whose function would be mainly to invite to listen to the images. It would also give more alterity to the object … ” The film then found its definitive form, an intimate and shared essay between your voice, choices of poems read, listening, and my images.’ — Philippe Cote

 

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Orissa (2010)
‘The story of an encounter…’

 

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Le Voyage Indien (Partie 1 & 2) (2011)
‘The film unfolds in parallel the images of two travels to India and Nepal, following one itinirary and two crossings. 8mm images, shot by an annonymous traveler at the beginning of the seventies and that I discovered at a flea market, punctuate my own Super8 images that I shot at the occasion of recent stays in 2008 and 2011. Some post production ambiant sound, recorded on site during the shoot, have sometimes been added on top of the orginal footages. Others remain silent. The film exposes instants revealed by a gaze caught in a geography dreamed by the author. Not a travel journal.. but travel as the desire for a poetry of sound and image.’ — Philippe Cote

 

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Images de l’eau (2012)
‘This film describes different forms and manifestations of water. The experience of the filmmaker’s body immersed in water, sunken into the liquid element, represents the main theme of this poetic essay on the imagination of this element.’ — CJC

 

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Jardin d’été (2012)
‘A moment spent in a garden. Bursts of light, flowers tremble, life passes.’ — Philippe Cote

 

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Le Chemin des glaces (2013)
‘By feet, by boat, by train, this film, shot in super 8mm, leads us from the old New York to the snowed and iced lands, farther in the North, through a white progression.’ — CJC

 

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Timanfaya (2015)
‘Lanzarote, a volcanic island in the Canaries was shaped in the 18th century by a series of eruptions. It preserves its memory through semi-desert mineral landscapes.

‘In 2015, I traveled this territory in search of cataclysm. In this devastated landscape, traces of a return to life were emerging.’ — Philippe Cote

 

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p.s. Hey. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Well, on the bright side, they have a lovely place to come visit you? Sorry, I’m an eternal optimist. Yes, true about headphones and the personal experience. I think maybe I really like that too. No, love didn’t help me out yesterday, but I forgot we had a big zoom meeting at dinnertime, so it wasn’t his fault. Maybe tonight. That song is about strawberries? But, honestly, I’ve only heard the song once, as impossible as that seems, ha ha. Love making one of the people in charge of our film turn into a decent human being, which is unfortunately a task so impossible that I fear even love can’t handle it, G. ** tomk, Hi! First, huge congrats on the Big Other prize nomination! So heartening! Fingers very, very crossed about the job prospects. Very nice that you have that trip in the offing if nothing else. Let me know when ‘Hiktum’ has its release date. Fantastic! I can’t wait for you to see the film. Zac and I are so excited about it. Love, me. ** David Ehrenstein, Agree, agree, and thank you so much for sharing your wisdom. ** Cody Goodnight, I’m … let’s say good. It’s a really treat-like novel. I, of course, agree with you about ‘Daughters of Darkness’ to the T. The Anne Francis/mannequins episode is one that has stayed forever in my memory. ‘Fallen Angels’ is my favourite WKW film. I hope you like it. I would say you had a pretty rich day, man, especially compared to mine which was just film editing from top to bottom. Happiest today! ** Dee Kilroy, Hi there, Dee! Fascinating research you’re doing there, needless to say. I totally get you about the script writing. The lure and nag. I’m looking forward to starting a new one when the film is locked in. I only wrote one script for a graphic novel, and the challenges were super interesting. Not totally unlike film writing, but the total freedom at other, illustrative end was quite inspiring. Thanks! ** Misanthrope, I’m glad you do. I like how superhero movies make time semi-fly by on flights, but otherwise not much. I am curious to see that new Spiderman animation thing. Diligence is always a great approach. Just so long as it doesn’t get infected by procrastination. ** alex, Hey, alex! I’m good, just editing editing almost non-stop, but hugely enjoying it. Oh, right, those fires in Canada. Strange how when you’re physically far away from something like that you forget about it as soon as the news media loses interest. I can juggle multiple projects, or at least two at a time, but one of them is always using up about 90% of the oxygen. And the others need to be different enough to be places to escape. I’m doing the blog while consumed with the film work for instance, although I must say putting together the blog posts is much harder right now. I haven’t read Sarah’s ‘The Child’, no. I don’t think I ever know about it. Huh, I’ll investigate when time arrives. Lovely to talk with you. ** _Black_Acrylic, It’s a goodie. I really think you’d like it. ** john christopher, Bowles’s prose is pretty delicious. Joy Williams wrote about her? Wow. I gotta try to find that. I had to google search quorn, so, no, I haven’t tried it. I wonder if you can buy it over here. Probably. I’m way, way behind on movies right now because I literally have no non-film editing time, but that’ll ease up. I watched a bunch of Philippe Cote’s films while making this post, and I really liked them. ‘O Fantasia’s’ great, yeah. I don’t know who the other lad is. I wonder if anyone knows? Take care. ** Jim Pedersen, Hi, Jim! Oh, how interesting about the grandmother. Has anything been written about her? How are you? Amazing, I hope. ** Jeff J, Hi, Jeff. I have read some of her short stories. They’re terrific. I haven’t read her play, no. Cool about Song Cave. I’m ready anytime. Oh, yes, Saturday is good. What time works? Same as last time? ** Brian O’Connell, Howdy, Brian. I find it hard to believe those submersible people are still alive, yeah. Horrifying. That sounds like pretty much nothing but bright side from here too. You have to justify using the funds? I mean, it sounds pretty justifiable? But I’m not a school official by any means. I liked the opening section of ‘Annette’, and I love it once the puppet became the centerpiece. I was less into the middle, relationship centric section. But I understand that Carax was kind of forced to emphasise that by Netflix. But, yeah, it was a very audacious film, and that’s good enough for me. Enjoy those films. I’ll be watching a film assemble, which should be pretty good too. ** Okay. Today the blog concentrates on the late French filmmaker Philippe Cote who made very beautiful, very personal short films mostly using Super8. I think you might find them dreamy if you give them a look, but who knows. See you tomorrow.