A film by Damien Manivel

Isadora’s children

MLD Films and SHELLAC present

A film by Damien Manivel

Isadora’s children

November 2019Poster, trailer, presskit, extracts, stills to be downloaded on

www.shellac-altern.org

with Agathe Bonitzer, Manon Carpentier, Marika Rizzi, Elsa Wolliaston

84 minutes - DCP / 4/3 / color 5.1 / french / France, Korea / 2019 / visa n° 149.927

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Following the death of her two children in April 1913,the legendary dancer, Isadora Duncan,

created a farewell solo entitled “Mother” in which,in a moment of extreme tenderness, a mother cradles

her child for the last time before letting him go.A century later, four women encounter the heartrending dance.

1 Even when being a dancer before a filmmaker, you had never before dedicated a film to dance: What inspired you this time?

Dance is a subject very dear to me and it took me very long to find the right approach. It’s always been in my mind, but I didn’t feel ready. I started making films where dance is invisibly present and I always see the movements of my actors as if they were dancing. It has been the encounter with Isadora Duncan’s story which triggered this new film. It all started when we were doing dance improvisation with Agathe Bonitzer and a choreographer friend, Aurélie Berland and Agathe made a very slow gesture, like a farewell; arms outstretched. Aurélie turned back to me telling me this gesture reminded her of Isadora Duncan’s solo «Mother». She told me about the tragic story of the death of Duncan’s children from which this dance originated. Later I listened to Scriabine music which also touched me. I then immediately understood that I had found the link; a source from which I could build a story both universal and personal. So a century later, me and my co-writer Julien Dieudonné, have freely adapted to film, Isadora Ducan’s «Mother».

2 Rather than a character, it is the dance itself that is the guiding thread through the surprising succession of your four characters. How did you get the idea of such broken continuity, and how did the narrative structure came to you?

There is no film or photograph of Isadora Duncan dancing this solo. Like a legend it was transmitted through Duncan’s disciples who have kept her memory and the only element remaining today is a score written in Labanotation. It’s a score carrying a very old emotion which in my opinion goes well before Ducan’s time. It is about the tragedy of loss; lamentation and the comforting power of art. Then I thought of a structure in three stages which like in a centrifugal movement would start from the rediscovery of the solo up to its final development. It seemed to me a necessity for this dance to cross different bodies and to carry several stories. The story begins with a young dancer who deciphers the score and gradually discovers these gestures that upset her. I also wanted to show what happens in the true transmission of the solo between the choreographer Marika Rizzi, and the young dancer with Down syndrome, Manon Carpentier. The finale unfolds through the point of view of a spectator; an old lady interpreted by Elsa Wolliaston, attending a performance, and how on her way back home, the emotion of the dance’s gestures continue to live in her. The sequel belong to the spectators who will see the film.

Four questions

to the Director

3 Has the art and story of Isadora Duncan, greater meaning for the dancer or for the filmmaker? Why did you choose to give her children metaphorically?

There is an excessiveness in Isadora Duncan; something larger than life; inmmense artistic requirements and at the same time a constant urge to be ever freer. As the character of Marika says in the movie: «You have to find your own dance»; it was necessary to work with this apparent paradox: to treat her art with all the respect which it arouses, but to keep a personal vision. Quite quickly I realized that we had to avoid any mimicry - it is not a question here of dancing like Duncan did in 1921 wearing large Greek tunics - but to observe concretely this dance, which, as in superimposition, unfolds from contemporary bodies. On the other hand, being cinema my purpose, I didn’t film the solo as a completed form but as a work in progress, as a sketch, as gestures that appear on the screen revealing the interiority of each of the characters and the relationship each one has with the sense of motherhood. After the loss of her children Isadora never stopped trying to establish a school, it was her big dream. With this film, I try by the imagination to continue her lineage.

4 All your work, and this last film especially, seems to be striving towards finding a way to combine emotion and minimalist form. How does your knowledge of dance contributes to your staging approach?

I take from dance the passion for the movement, the taste in the detail and a very particular emotion which does not let itself to be locked up by reason, like a held note, deep... this I try to put in each of my films. I mistrust anything too spectacular and with special effects of all kinds. Dance also allowed me to get into cinema without much inhibition, even with lightness, and when I’m on set the moments I prefer are those when I feel we are in rehearsal, like in the theater, that nothing is fixed and that anything could happen. I don’t do what is called actor direction. I adapt to the rhythm of each actor; to their own way of being and moving. Every evening, my team and I, rewrite the scenes for the next day. All this shapes the film and I accept it, it is a good way of doing things. It is a method that requires patience and is not comfortable but if we have the courage to let ourselves be surprised, then the film appears. Like on the other side of the mirror, cinema has taught me to be concrete, to always film what surrounds me in first degree and to tell stories with a simple grammar. Film and dance are two very different arts but it is very exciting to be able to braid them.

Entretien réalisé par Antoine Thirion - Juillet 2019

2017 TAKARA - THE NIGHT I SWAM, co-directed with Kohei Igarashi Mostra of Venice - Orizzonti Competition, San Sebastian International Film Festival - Zabaltegi Tabakalera...

2016 THE PARC ACID - Cannes Film Festival

2014 A YOUNG POET Locarno Film Festival - Cinéastes du Présent - Special mention...

2012 A SUNDAY MORNING (short film)

Critic’s Week - Cannes Film Festival - Nikon Award for Short Film...

2010 THE LADY WITH THE DOG (short film)

Jean Vigo Award, ACID - Cannes Film Festival...

2008 BE STILL, Ô MY SORROW (short film)

Entrevues - Belfort...

2007 VIRIL (short film)

Locarno Film Festival, Rotterdam International Film Festival...

Damien ManivelDamien Manivel started his artistic career as a dancer before turning to cinema. After studying in Le Fresnoy, he directed several awarded shorts, including The Lady with the Dog winner of the Jean Vigo Price. Since 2014 he has produced and directed four feature films presented in major festivals (Cannes, Locarno, Venise, San Sebastian…). With Isadora’s Children, selected in Locarno IFF for International Competition, Damien Manivel delivers his first film about dance.

Agathe Bonitzer Manon Carpentier Marika Rizzi Elsa Wolliaston

Director Damien Manivel Screenplay Damien Manivel Julien Dieudonné Cinematographer Noé Bach Editing Dounia Sichov Sound Jérôme Petit Simon Apostolou Production Martin Bertier Damien Manivel

Cast

Crew

An MLD films productionin co-production with JeonJu Cinema Projectin association with Arte/Cofinova 15with the support of Région Ile-de-FranceSales by SHELLAC

www.shellac-altern.org

D I S T R I B U T I O N