Timothée Engasser

Home is where the heart is - Film - 24min - 2025

presented as part of the exhibition Panorama 27

Film


Somewhere between a quest and a cathartic ritual, this film, made up of mental projections, objects filled with memories and happy present moments, sets out to create a space in which to set fire to the relics of this past. It is also, and above all, the recreation of an architecture of violence suffered by a little girl who was sexually abused in her childhood home by her father. Mia uses virtual reality tools to create the spaces where she grew up and where these events took place. It is these silent witnesses that she summons and virtually reshapes through her memory.

This is also the story of a couple in love, Mia and Timothée. When Mia’s ghosts come back to haunt her, Mia and Timothée decide together to return to this house to summon what needs to be atoned, to prevent painful memories from invading the present and their future.

This film is the fruit of a co-writing process with Mia, and is at once a stage, a process and the end of a chapter. Having the opportunity to move beyond something, to exorcise memories and leave things behind, is also one of the powers conferred by cinema.

Timothée Engasser


Born in Saint-Sebastien-sur-Loire in 1991, Timothée Engasser lives and works between Marseille and Lille. A graduate in urban sociology with a thesis in research and creation (ÉNSAV/Université du Mirail), he has pursued the themes of his research in cinematographic works on the edge of reality, between documentary and experimental. His films include *Tenace*, *Il y a un endroit dans la nuit* and *Omens bloom in the dark*, which have been screened at a number of international festivals (International Kurzfilmtage Winterthur, Les Yeux ouverts, Entrevues de Belfort, FRAC Grand Large). He seeks is to explore the imaginary worlds among traces, ruins and gaps.

Production


Le Fresnoy - Studio national des arts contemporains, Tourcoing

Credits


› Performance : Mia Oustry
› Chef électricien : Vincent Cathelain
› Ingénieur du son, montage son : Raphaël Zucconi
› Montage image : Carla Biays
› Graphiste : Paul Guilbert
› Étalonnage : Baptiste Évrard
› Mixage son : Clément Decaudin
› Assistant électricien·ne : Robin Pleuvret
› Chargée de production : Barbara Merlier