» Experimental Narratives & Avant-Garde Shorts

FILMS IMAGINAIRES comprises a collection of Lemaître’s films that he made between 1965 and 1991. In all of these films, Lemaitre continues his lettrist approach of creating an amalgam of images, scratching on film, and contrapuntal voiceover sound tracks.

In AU-DELA DU DÉCLIC, Lemaître captured the pages of a book on film, reframing them through rephotography on an animation stand, accompanied by one of the filmmaker’s old lettrist poems. For UN NAVET, the filmmaker includes clips from fiction and animation films, excerpts from his own films, and subtitles and intertitles; the sound track is a commentary on how good or bad the films are. The visual form of the film is reminiscent of the later found footage films of Bruce Conner. FILMS IMAGINAIRES is composed entirely of handwritten texts, suggesting how the spectator can be involved in the performance of the film. in L’AYANT DROIT, the filmmaker includes found footage from politicians speaking, with his own voiceover commentary. In FIN DE TOURNAGE, he films still image collages; the audio commentary discusses his hope for the future of film. With this film, Lemaître posits in paradigmatic fashion the parameters of experimental and expanded cinema.

Also by Maurice Lemaître