Christine Baudillon

ALEXANDRE KOJÈVE, knowingly

"In 1989, thanks to the addresses given to me by Jean Daive, I contacted Kojève's partner, Nina Ivanoff, then his niece, Nina Kousnetzoff. Nina Ivanoff allowed me to photograph the apartment in Vanves, which had remained as it was since Kojève's death, to admire the many photographs he took until the 1950s and to meet many of his friends. After reading "The Introduction to Reading Hegel", this was my first contact with Kojève's reality and since then the desire to make a film has not left me". (François Lagarde).

L’Ébranlement

The principle of the film l'Ébranlement is twofold, based on the visual approximation of two distant terms (fencing and fireworks) and on a principle of expenditure (the possible engendering of one by the other). Images of fireworks are edited in echo to shots of a fencing duel, situated in a perforated architecture, with arcades (the Vieille Charité, in Marseille), which multiplies the incessant passages from shadow to light. At the moment of the clash (the point of the foil touching the opponent's body), the fireworks unfold as if the contact was established - an explosion, an epidemic mode of contamination by successive stings, point by point. The touch of the foil answers the blaze of the sky. As soon as the sky darkens, after the last spikes of light are extinguished, the fencing duel can be resumed, like a carillon or an automatic game. The attack is a flash of lightning that sets the collar on fire.