back

Journal d’Amérique

American Journal
Encounters 2022
© Les Films Hatari / Iwaso Films
It took Arnaud des Pallières ten years to make Poussières d’Amérique (2011). A decade later, Journal d’Amérique has adopted the narrative system and historical scope of the previous work to create an essay film interweaving various anonymous, often private archive images and intertitles containing a mixture of reflection, speculation and poetry. The new work comprises fragments of images, texts and sounds written in the language of cinema which seem to hark back to a silent era that was nonetheless full of the noise of the world. Written from January to April of an undefined year, this diary is like “an old movie from the 20th century”. Parables about fairies and sharks, fond memories and dreams of catching fish and collecting precious stones slowly turn into stories about wars, atom bombs, patriots and veterans, as well as about our alienated childhoods and the ghosts among us. While sparks of light and ideas burst onto the screen and in our minds at a thought-provoking pace, we are invited to meditate upon what the French filmmaker once liked to call “our old homeland”.
To view this content, you must enable third-party cookies. >
by Arnaud des Pallières France 2022 English intertitles 112’ Colour Documentary form

Crew

Written and Directed by Arnaud des Pallières
Editing Arnaud des Pallières
Music Martin Wheeler
Sound Mélissa Petitjean
Production Manager Gautier Raguenes
Producers Michel Klein, Jérôme Dopffer

World sales

Les Films d’Atalante

Produced by

Les Films Hatari

Iwaso Films

Photos

Berlinale Meets | Interview

Arnaud des Pallières

© Cécile Burban

Born in Paris, France in 1961, he studied literature and film. He has directed a dozen short films, organised and filmed a conference with the philosopher Gilles Deleuze, made three “documentary-fiction” essays for television and five feature films for the cinema. He is also the screenwriter and editor of all his films.

Filmography

1989 La mémoire d’un ange (The Memory of An Angel); short film · Gilles Deleuze: Qu’est-ce que l’acte de création? (Gilles Deleuze: What Is the Creative Act?); documentary 1993 Les choses rouges (The Red Things); short film 1994 Avant après (Before After); short film 1996 Drancy avenir 1999 Is Dead (Portrait incomplet de Gertrude Stein) (Is Dead (Incomplete Portrait of Gertrude Stein)); TV documentary 2001 Disneyland, mon vieux pays natal (Disneyland, My Old Native Land); TV documentary 2003 Adieu 2005 Le narrateur; short film 2008 Parc 2010 Diane Wellington; short film 2011 Poussières d’Amérique (American Dust); TV documentary 2013 Michael Kohlhaas 2016 Orpheline (Orphan) 2019 Degas et moi; short film 2022 Journal d’Amérique (American Journal); documentary

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2022