ANTOINE VIVIANI
Antoine Viviani is a filmmaker and multidisciplinary artist based in Paris.
His work, whether through documentary filmmaking, expanded cinema or immersive installations, questions our mental perception of reality and its relationship to technology.
It has been exhibited in various institutions such as the Sensory Ethnographic Lab at Harvard, The Tisch School, the National Gallery of Iceland, the Gaité Lyrique in Paris, NYU, and awarded and selected at films festivals like Sundance, IDFA, CPH:Dox, Visions du réel, etc
He is a 2022 laureate of the Villa Albertine residency in the US and a 2022 laureate of the Magnetic Residency / Fluxus Program in the UK.
- documentaries
Antoine directed his first feature documentary In Situ in 2011. The film, described as a a psycho-geographic poem, stages different interventions (by artists, philosophers, dancers and architects) into daily life situations within urban spaces in Europe. Coproduced by Arte, In Situ was transmitted on a bespoke website until 2016, receiving strong public as well as critical acclaim. The film received awards from the International Documentary Film Festival of Amsterdam (IDFA Doclab award) and the Open City London Documentary Film Festival (Best Film award).
His second film, In Limbo (2015), extended this direction. Described as an interior journey into the limbo of the Internet, the film questions the myths, dreams and fears behind the emergence of the digital world and the digitisation of our lives. It tells the story of a spirit performed by Canadian writer Nancy Huston slowly dissolving into the global network, as if it were the only trace of civilization that remained. The film portrays some of the Internet founding fathers and prophets (such as Ray Kurzweil, Brewster Kahle, Gordon Bell) as ghosts talking to themselves forever, using a uniquely designed volumetric camera. The film received critical acclaim, being selected in more than 50 international film festivals, receiving multiple awards and being invited in major art institutions ( such as Harvard Film Study Center and the Sensory Ethnographic Lab, NYU, Gaité Lyrique in Paris, Théatre National de Bretagne, Tisch School in New York), distributed by Grasshopper Films in the US, Mubi and Potemkine in France.
These projects gave birth to ongoing collaborations with sci-fi writer Alain Damasio and novelist Nancy Huston.
- expanded cinema and immersive installations
Both film projects experimented with different forms of expanded cinema. Along the linear film for the theater, online interactive experiences of In Situ and In Limbo were developed to engage a different conversation with the viewers. A specific mobile app for In Limbo would collect one’s data for a couple of days to generate a personalised version of the film, in which the viewer’s personal data would appear as footage within the film.
In 2018, the immersive installation Solastalgia, was created as a sci-fi sequel to In Limbo and as well as an adaptation of the novel The Moral invention by Adolfo Bioy Casares. The 400 square meter immersive installation premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2020 as part of the New Frontier selection. Using augmented reality, the installation allowed a group of 10 people to explore a haunted, desolated area from the future, for a period of up to 40 minutes. Created in collaboration with filmmaker Pierre-Alain Giraud, visual artist Gabriela Fridriksduttir, sound designer Nicolas Becker and composer Valgeir Sigurdson, the installation travelled to the Champs Libres Museum in Rennes, France (October 2019 - April 2020) and the National Gallery of Iceland (June 2020 - January 2021).
- collective / on-site projects
In 2017, on abandoned land in the northern region of Corsica, Antoine established Providenza - Ghjuncheto: a site for both farming as well as cultural and artistic production. Every year until 2021, a multidisciplinary festival as well as residency program gathered artists, chefs, filmmakers, writers and carpenters in the mountains of Pieve, creating dialogue with the local community through the staging of public performances, screenings and installations.
In 2022 Providenza becomes into a permanent agri-cultural project that gathers a farm as well as studios for cinema, music and scientific transdiciplinary projects. It holds annual residency programs in partnership with European institutions as well as a series of weekly workshops made by pioneer international practitioners from the fields of film, music, fine art, agriculture, architecture and cuisine.
SELECTED WORKS - FILMOGRAPHY
- Chaque Paupière est un dôme, 5 min, 2022 (Every eyelid is a dome)
Written and directed by Antoine Viviani, produced by Misia Films, commissioned by Lafayettes Anticipations and La Galerie des Galeries
Pitch: The surveillance camera system of a huge mall has a nightmare and tries to escape…
Selected at the Venice international Film Festival 2022, in the Giornati degli Autori section.
- Solastalgia, 2019-2021, Immersive installation
Co-created with P.A Giraud, produced by Providences, supported by the CNC
- June 2020 to Jan. 2021, solo show, National Gallery of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland
- Jan. 2020 - New Frontier Selection, Sundance Film Festival, Park City, USA
- Nov. 2019 to March 2020, solo show - Musée des Champs Libres, Rennes, France
More info here
- Dans les Limbes (In Limbo, v.i.) , 89 min, feature film and online interactive work, 2016
Written and Directed by Antoine Viviani (written in collaboration with Alain Damasio, Bojina Panayatova)
A Providences, Arte France and The National Film Board of Canada coproduction, supported by the CNC and the Media program, distributed by Mubi, Grasshopper Films in North America, Potemkine Films in France.
Awards and distinctions :
- Best Film Award, Festival de cinema documentaire Traces de vie 2017
- Best emergent filmmaker Award, Open City London Documentary Film Festival
- Prix Italia for Best Web program
More than 50 selections in film festivals:
- IDFA 2016, CPH:Dox 2016, Visions du Réel 2016, E tudo Verdade / It’s all true International documentary Film, Festival of Brasil, Millenium Docs Against Gravity Poland 2016, Festival du Nouveau cinema, Montreal, 2016, Moscow, International Film Festival, 2016, Millenium Docs Film Festival Brussels 2016, Mapping Film Festival Geneva 2016, International Documentary Film Festival of Taipei, Taiwan 2016, Open City London Docs Festival 2016, Cine Performa, Redbull Station, Sao Paulo, Brasil 2016, A different Tomorrow competition, Reykjavik International Film Festival, Iceland 2016, Kassel Dokfest 2016, 2morrow Moscow International Festival of Independent Films, Russia 2016, Imagine Science international film festival, New York, USA, 2016, Inscience Dutch Film Festival 2016, Fraud Film Festival Amsterdam 2016, Les Écrans Documentaires, 2016, Festival Traces de vie, 2016, Corsica Doc, 2016, FID Marseille, Les primeurs du blog documentaire, etc.
- In Situ - 85min, feature film and online interactive work, 2011
Written and directed by Antoine Viviani, a Providences & Arte France, soutenu par le CNC
Awards and distinctions :
- Doclab Award, International Documentary Film Festival of Amsterdam, IDFA - 2012
- Best Film Award, Open City London Documentary Film Festival - 2012
More than 20 sélections in film festivals :
- IDFA, Open City London Documentary Film Festival, Visions du réel, Nyons, Suisse, Sheffield International FilmFestival, Tel Aviv International Film Festival, Input Sydney Film Festival,, etc
CONFERENCES
- Autour de Solastalgia, a conversation with Mehdi Belhaj Kacem and Antoine Viviani, Théâtre National de Bretagne, Rennes, France, 2019
- Film the invisible reality, with Raphael Siboni and Antoine Viviani, Cinema du Réel, Centre Pompidou, Paris - 2018
- In Limbo in conversation with Antoine Viviani, Lucien Castaing-Taylor and the Sensory Ethnographic Lab - Harvard Film Study Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA - 2016
- Dans les limbes, a conversation with Alain Damasio, Nancy Huston and Antoine Viviani, La Gaité Lyrique, Paris, 2016
Education
- BPREA, Bac pro agricole - Capacité agricole (farming professionnal degree) 2016
- Master degree, Sciences Po Paris, 2007
contact : av (dot) providences (dot) fr | instagram @vivianinooo