La danse

Territoires cinématographiques is a space for dialogue between live performance and cinema, devised in conjunction with Avignon's Utopia cinemas. It's a daily programme of film screenings after which the public can meet and talk with directors, choreographers, filmmakers, researchers and critics invited to the Festival d'Avignon. It's a space designed to explore the intimate relationships that these speakers maintain between disciplines and the world. It's a space where we can take a closer look, from the small to the large, at the themes that are brought to life on stage, on screen and under the plane trees of the Café des idées.

Since 1967 and in almost 50 films, Frederick Wiseman has used his clear-sighted camera to plunge us into the heart of the major institutions that represent our contemporary society. He is the man who, through the acuity of his gaze, the intelligence of his construction and the pertinence of his rhythm, manages to captivate us in atypical cinematographic formats of up to 4 hours (the immersion effect linked to the length of the film is an integral part of its masterly success) without the shadow of a commentary, placing us simply in the role of observer, without the slightest hint of explanation and without ever letting boredom or weariness get the better of us. In this long-term work, the camera is forgotten, and it is the reality, the truth of the place, that comes into view.Austere, are you afraid? Inaccessible? Incomprehensible? A beautifully crafted object for a well-targeted audience? Not at all, on the contrary! An immense and essential work, selected and awarded at the world's greatest festivals, which in November 2016 earned its author an honorary Oscar for his entire career.

La danse

By Frederick Wiseman // France // 2009 // 2h38

From backstage workshops to public performances, Frederick Wiseman set up his camera at the heart of the Paris Opera for 7 weeks. The Paris Opera Ballet is one of the largest and oldest classical dance companies in the world. The filmmaker follows the different stages in a dancer's life on the road to becoming a star, from the Opéra school to the Palais Garnier. Frederick Wiseman films the daily life of the institution through rehearsals and the production of various ballets.