Parallel to their unique cinematographic self-portraits, Maria Klonaris and Katerina Thomadaki launched their Série Portraits in the early 1980s, in which they reinvented the art of film portraiture by composing images of women who don't represent any preconceived idea of "femininity" and by engaging in an ethical reflection of woman as subject in a dialogue that tests the boundaries between Self and Other.
Chutes. Désert. Syn is a portrait of the performer Syn Guérin. The visual treatment of the landscape establishes a powerful relationship with her body and the successive and endless falls to which she subjects it, establishing a gestural, rhythmic and existential motif.
By performing a series of ceremonies, dances and spells, Selva develops variations on the magical presence of Parvaneh Navaï, in the forest. The film integrates a broad mix of still and moving images into an elaborate sound creation, creating an extension of acoustic and visual reflections that evokes the figure of an ascending spiral. The sound, extensively worked using synthesisers, dilates the visual and bodily space of the person portrayed with its relations between different types of music, its creation of multiple loops and its variation in terms of speed, frequency and resonance.
Chutes. Désert. Syn, Katerina Thomadaki, 1983-1985, super 8, no sound, 18 min.
Selva. Un portrait de Parvaneh Navaï, Maria Klonaris, 1981-83, super 8, 70 min.
Both films are screened in 35 mm restorations made by Archives Françaises du Film / CNC under the direction of the filmmakers themselves.
