MATTER!, 26min, France
Directed by Samuel Feron
It tells of the disappearance of Nothingness, the appearance of Matter and its confrontation with Man and with time. it is punctuated by a textual narrative and accompanied by Archive music.

http://www.cubicsfer.com/

Get to know the filmmaker:

What motivated you to make this film?

I’ve been photographing the world for over 20 years. I’ve amassed tens of thousands of photographs. One day, I thought it would be exciting to give the photographs a dimension they’ve never had before: a dynamic flow, in which they could blend, flow together, and overlap. A kind of ballet, where the viewer would be immersed, even if unwillingly, drawn into a visual, poetic, and musical story.

From the idea to the finished product, how long did it take you to make this film?

Well, it all depends on when you start! The oldest photographs in this film date back to 2005, so that’s 20 years ago. However, the idea for the film came to me much later, two years ago. It took me a year of work to make it happen: imagining and writing a story, selecting the photographs, researching the music, and – this is what took most of the time – working on the sequences again and again, in order to ensure the balance between the necessarily static dimension (by definition) of a photograph and the objective of going beyond this static framework to bring movement.

What was the biggest obstacle you faced while making this film?

Making a film from photographs is a real challenge: initially, there’s no dialogue, no actors, no movement. The visual, and therefore the photographs, occupy a central place. But that’s not enough to make a film. You have to invent a story, create it from these images, without the help of people who carry it, develop it, and convey it. So I imagined a character based on an entity, both real and mystical, all-powerful yet malleable and vulnerable, and gave it the attributes of anger and fear.

There was a second major difficulty: like any photographer, I tend to consider that a photograph is sufficient in itself and that the viewer must be able to look at it without time limit. However, the film breaks this personal contemplative space to impose its own reading rhythm. And this is precisely where the problem lies: how, in a film, to give time for photographic contemplation, which moreover depends on each individual, while ensuring that the viewer accepts being interrupted in his reverie or meditation. To do this, it is necessary to impose a rhythm that will be accepted by the viewer, and this rhythm is that of the music, which is why it is so important. I am aware that there are images that are perhaps too quickly caught up in the music, but that was a bit of a price to pay for carrying out this project.

The characters in the film possess a completely extraordinary singularity. What can you say about that?

My photographs speak of nature and the world, and therefore of Matter, which constitutes the main entity. Speaking of it and its birth meant evoking Nothingness, which, paradoxically, was initially anything but nothing, except when it decided… to disappear!

Then, Time appears, and we understand that there will be conflict between these two colossal, all-powerful, and fundamentally antagonistic entities. At first glance, the battle seems unequal because Matter is under assault from Time and can barely exert any control over it; yet, Matter cannot disappear because otherwise, Time would have nothing to exert its control over and would therefore no longer exist.

The other character is Man, not as an individual, but as a species, dominating and invasive. What happens when he considers himself superior to the Matter from which he is descended? How does Matter react? As a demiurge, has it given birth to an out-of-control creature? This is the whole point of Scene 4.

We are intrigued by the epilogue, and in particular the very last image. What message, what meaning does it conceal?

I wouldn’t want to reveal the final part of the film… Let’s just say that at a certain stage in the evolution of Matter, the question of its ultimate future and its place in the world arises. A new character is invoked, appearing in the background, who takes on the role of a spiritual dimension, proposing paths that can be understood as a break with the density and hyper-presence of Matter, an attempt and an invitation to explore the beyond, in a completely unknown direction.

What role does music play in the film? Why did you choose the English band Archive?

Music is essential in a photographic film: the images must follow one another according to a precise rhythm, in keeping with the story. But also and above all, the musical universe, its harmonies, its melodies must correspond to the photographic universe of the film. Archive stood out for its musical creativity, its ability to imagine unique melodies accompanied by exceptional instrumentation, and its rich and powerful atmosphere. I chose pieces that corresponded to the themes and scenes of the film: dramatic and explosive, melancholic and contemplative, mystical and dreamlike.

Your favorite dish?

Scallops with black Périgord truffle. In it, I find the ocean and the power of the Earth.

What is your next project, your next film?

I think that photographic film brings a specificity, an originality, a different perspective, and has its place in the experimental film category; it seems important to me to develop this new trend. I’m thinking about a new theme, a new story, combining different photographs and different music. I’d also like to create partnerships with musicians because I believe that photography and music, when skillfully combined, bring the viewer a heightened sense of emotion.