Damien Manivel: Les Enfants d’Isadora

In 1913, the mythical American dancer and choreographer Isadora Duncan lost her two children in a tragic accident. To express and ease her sadness, she created the solo dance Mother. In Les Enfants d’Isadora, director and dancer Damien Manivel follows four women in their individual attempts to fathom and dance Duncan’s choreography in their own way: the young and beautiful dancer Agathe Bonitzer, the choreographer Marika Rizzi, her pupil Manon Carpentier who lives with down syndrome and the retired choreographer Elsa Wolliaston. The women are followed with a patient and loving camera in their sometimes frustrating and moving search for the essence of dance, in which they are confronted with loss, emptiness and sadness in their own lives. With Les Enfants d’Isadora, Manivel won the award for best direction at the film festival of Locarno.