James Benning: Ten Skies (16mm open air)

“One of this unique filmmaker’s greatest works, and on paper, one of his most minimalist: ten shots of the sky, each lasting ten minutes. But the experience of watching – and hearing – it is fabulously rich and intense. The skyscapes are filled with life and change at the speed of light. The soundtrack creates an equally rich narrative space by way of ten short stories that are ​‘insinuated’ without ever being ​‘explained.’ A masterpiece.” (Alexander Horwath)

“All ten skies were filmed from my backyard in Southern California. (…) It took me fifty years to look at the sky like that!” (James Benning)

16mm expanded version:

A presenter reads the introductory text to the audience, who are instructed to roll up a sheet of paper and use it as a telescope to look at the screen.

À projeter sur le ciel, la nuit (To Screen on the Sky, At Night) is a nod to the filmmaker and critic Dominique Noguez, who fantasized about the sky as a screen in a 1973 text. Always the bricoleur, Maurice Lemaître made this work entirely out of transparent film, the visual subject being the ballet of dust and scratches, black against the luminous background, like a negative of ​“stars and galaxies of possible images.”