Waterscapes 1

Programme of experimental short films. Screening followed by a Q&A with director Jeff Daniel Silva.

Mare Sapiens

France, 2026. Directors: Aurélie Darbouret, Jeff Daniel Silva. 28 minutes.

Shot entirely underwater, using exclusively natural light and ambient sound, the film explores the Gulf of Marseille as a landscape in which marine organisms coexist with cables, wrecks, pipes and other traces of human activity. Alternating long, contemplative shots with a dense underwater sound composition, Mare Sapiens recomposes a marine ecosystem in which the human presence becomes increasingly hard to ignore.

Daphnia (La daphnie)

France, 1928. Director: Jean Painlevé. 9 minutes.

The film describes in detail how the daphnia functions, a microscopic marine crustacean, but along the way it turns into a true visual feast, in which parts of its body constantly form complex abstract figures of dizzying beauty.

Pond and Waterfall

USA, 1982. Director: Barbara Hammer. 15 minutes.

A cinematic experiment that contrasts the quiet underwater world of a pond with the agitated and violent surface of the ocean, transforming, through the grain of 8 mm film, aquatic plants and the reflections of the water into an impressionist composition of almost tactile materiality.

The Beach (La plage)

France, 1991. Director: Patrick Bokanowski. Sound: Michèle Bokanowski. 14 minutes.

A hypnotic film in which the bodies of people on a beach captured at various hours of the day are reflected through pieces of coloured glass, resulting in true tableaux vivants, now expressionist, now surrealist, in a fluidity of energies set in motion.

Reclaiming Vision

Norway, 2018. Directors: Marjolijn Dijkman, Toril Johannessen. 27 minutes.

Made with the help of a small microscope, the film presents a succession of moving images whose protagonists are marine microorganisms vital to maintaining the ecosystem. Bringing them into the foreground, through spectacular compositions, reminds us that the entities that make life on Earth possible are often inaccessible to the human eye and therefore leave us indifferent.