Starting with the premise that any documentary portrayal has something dominating and destructive in its nature, this short essay tackles the relationship between the director and her protagonist, Faustine. The act of looking becomes tangible through technology, superstitions and fantasmatic seeing. A film, it states, is a space that takes a real-life person hostage, engulfs, and seals them in forever.
director, writer & editor - Ira A. Goryainova
heroine - Faustine Thibon
producer - PSIG laboratories
cinematographer - Patrick Stevens, Ira A. Goryainova
music - hypnoskull
heroine - Faustine Thibon
producer - PSIG laboratories
cinematographer - Patrick Stevens, Ira A. Goryainova
music - hypnoskull
(2024)
experimental documentary, essay, 14 min.
experimental documentary, essay, 14 min.
REGARDING FAUSTINE
Director's statement:
Regarding Faustine starts with its etymology: regarding comes from the French regarder – to look, and further, garder – to guard. If I go further into my own mother tongue, regarding is translated as касательно (Russian), in which one can clearly hear to touch softly. This all is present in the nature of looking: to look at somebody, to gaze, means to regard, to guard and to touch – perhaps not so softly. For the gaze is often seen as something destructive, hierarchic, possessive. That is especially true for a documentary film, tradition of which lies in anthropology. I therefore continue with the premise that any documentary portrayal has something dominating and destructive in its nature. My gaze touches the character of my documentary film, and this touch gets amplified and materialized by my camera. Together with the audience, time after time, screening after screening this act of looking will be repeated, replaying one or another event, gesture of a person, words which are said.
In this essay I revise my own footage made with Faustine Thibon (for the film The Ruins of Europe, premiered at Visions du Reel in 2017). Tackling our film relationship, I aim at making the act of looking tangible, through technology, superstitions and fantasmatic seeing. I speculate that a film is a space that takes a real-life person hostage, engulfs, and seals them in forever.
Regarding Faustine starts with its etymology: regarding comes from the French regarder – to look, and further, garder – to guard. If I go further into my own mother tongue, regarding is translated as касательно (Russian), in which one can clearly hear to touch softly. This all is present in the nature of looking: to look at somebody, to gaze, means to regard, to guard and to touch – perhaps not so softly. For the gaze is often seen as something destructive, hierarchic, possessive. That is especially true for a documentary film, tradition of which lies in anthropology. I therefore continue with the premise that any documentary portrayal has something dominating and destructive in its nature. My gaze touches the character of my documentary film, and this touch gets amplified and materialized by my camera. Together with the audience, time after time, screening after screening this act of looking will be repeated, replaying one or another event, gesture of a person, words which are said.
In this essay I revise my own footage made with Faustine Thibon (for the film The Ruins of Europe, premiered at Visions du Reel in 2017). Tackling our film relationship, I aim at making the act of looking tangible, through technology, superstitions and fantasmatic seeing. I speculate that a film is a space that takes a real-life person hostage, engulfs, and seals them in forever.
