Isabel Pagliai

Film

“It is early. Still very early. Stop acting as if you’re an owl, Isabelle. Let us sleep, and get back to sleep. We’re not interested in your dreams and your poetry.”

Between the wild stories of Adriana, a modern little girl, and the poetry of Isabelle, accused of treason by her brothers in the 16th century,what is the connection? Between the literary text by André Pieyre de Mandiargues and the prerecorded worlds of love on a modern automatic doll, what possible, fantasised echoes can there be?

Here, Adriana is telling a story, Camille grumbling and Océane, in who knows what boredom, is trying to get her doll to speak its never-ending discourse. The trace of a programme or, on the contrary, the hope of a possible emancipation.

This film, freely inspired by André Pieyre de Mandiargues’ play Isabella Morra, came out of a shoot with children on a housing estate in the upper reaches of Boulogne-sur-Mer. Through material made up of everyday activities and portraits of children in their spontaneous theatricality, a play of resonances is established with the world of the text.

Isabel Pagliai

Isabel Pagliai was born in 1988 and studied literature and art history at the Université Denis Diderot in Paris then film at the Université de Saint-Denis. Combining both documentary and fictional approaches, her work revolves around the themes of childhood and language. Meanwhile, she also works on films as co-writer and director of photography. She is currently living and working in Paris and Tourcoing, where she is a student at Le Fresnoy - Studio national des arts contemporains.