The figure of a fisherman at dusk. What is it that drives this body to brave the dark, the solitude, the cold, with time suspended like the mist? — What this fisherman is after is a silurid, a deep-water catfish that has the unusual feature of being able to grow larger than a human being. Since it began colonising French rivers a few decades ago, this species – originally from the Danube – has aroused media interest and provoked questioning and anxiety. Our knowledge of silurids is limited and the species inspires the same wariness as any foreign body suspected of upsetting the established order of things.
Three documentary voice-overs accompany the fisherman’s excursion: his own, and those of a scientist and a poetess. They open a door to the mysterious depths and to the irrational, while reflecting on the natural order and the relation between Man and his environment.
Suddenly, some odd phenomena begin to occur, giving the impression that our perception is distorted, hallucinatory, that phantasmagorical events are suddenly taking place. The terms “strange” and “stranger” recover their primitive meaning.
Born in France in 1991, June Balthazard studied simultaneously at the Institut supérieur des beaux-arts (isba) in Besançon and at the Haute École d’art et de design (head) in Geneva (department of Cinema/Cinema of the Real).
She has made several short films which are grounded in the real and at the same time break free of it. Her work has been shown in exhibitions such as “Les liaisons équivoques” at the Musée des beaux-arts in Dole, at the “Special Sessions” of the frac Franche-Comté as well as at festivals, notably Visions du réel in Nyon, where she won the Opening Scene prize in 2018.
2018
Festival international du court-métrage de Clermont-Ferrand, compétition nationale, France
Festival international du court-métrage de Winterthur, compétition internationale, Suisse
Festival RIDM, compétition internationale, Canada
Exposition Panorama 20 : commissaire José-Manuel Gonçalvès, Fresnoy, France
Paréidolie, Salon International du Dessin Contemporain, Espace vidéo, France
Festival du film Court en Plein air de Grenoble, compétition Regards, France
Prix Tënk et acquisition
Visions du réel, compétition Opening Scenes, Suisse
2017-2016
Exposition Panorama 19 : commissaire Jean de Loisy, Fresnoy, France
Soutien individuel à la création, DRAC - Bourgogne-Franche-Comté
DOCM, Visions du réel, Suisse
Short Film Corner, Festival de Cannes, France
Exposition Liaisons équivoques, Musée des beaux-arts de Dole, France
Conférences Séances Spéciales, FRAC Franche-Comté, France
Projection Séances spéciales, FRAC Franche-Comté et cinéma Kursaal, France
Production : Le Fresnoy, Studio national des arts contemporains