RESET 110 MINUTES DOCUMENTARY DIRECTED BY THIERRY DEMAIZIÈRE AND ALBAN TEURLAI PRODUCED BY FALABRACKS IN ASSOCIATION WITH CANAL+ ARIANNA CASTOLDI INTERNATIONAL SALES arianna.castoldi@upsidetelevision.com +33 1 58 47 86 6 SÉVERINE GARUSSO INTERNATIONAL SALES severine.garusso@upsidetelevision.com +33 1 58 47 89 44 PAULINE SAINT-HILAIRE INTERNATIONAL SALES p.sh@upsidetelevision.com +33 1 58 47 92 94 JOHAN DE FARIA ACQUISITIONS / SALES johan.defaria@upsidetelevision.com +33 1 58 47 80 23 ELISE BOUDJEMA SERVICING & INTERNATIONAL MARKETING COORDINATOR elise.boudjema@upsidetelevision.com +33 1 58 47 87 71
A silent revolution, seized by this captivating documentary. TÉLÉRAMA A visual ballet, beautifully breathtaking. An exceptional document. VANITY FAIR This documentary knew how to splendidly catch movements and feelings, power and grace. ELLE Thrilling, fascinating, fun. LIBÉRATION
THE STORY OF A WORLD PREMIERE THIRTY-THREE MINUTES TO DEMONSTRATE, WIN OVER, AND IMPOSE ONESELF. Thirty-three minutes. That was the duration of the first ballet created for the new season by Benjamin Millepied as director of dance at the Opéra National de Paris. Thanks to his experience in America, his youth, reputation, and sense of communication, Benjamin Millepied is shaking up this prestigious institution. His intentions are clear: The ballet is in need of renewal, and this renewal is going to occur at each stage of its creative process. It all starts with a simple, perfectly square, gray box. This will form the set for his first show, with just a bank of lights picking out the space for the dancers. Millepied selected his dancers from the corps de ballet. There are no stars or lead dancers on stage. Through his headphones, Millepied listens to the music written by his friend, the young American composer Nico Muhly. He films his quest for movements in the mirror with his phone, then notes down the steps in a notebook. This is how Clear, Loud, Bright, Forward was conceived, sketched out, noted down, and ultimately, performed. Benjamin Millepied allowed Thierry Demaizière and Alban Teurlai to follow his every step during the creative process, from his initial ideas through rehearsals and up to the gala premiere. This immersion provides an insight into his creativity, his modernity, and his abundant energy. We discover his approach to choreography, but also witness his relationship with the dancers and how he gets to grips with the administration of such a venerable institution.
DIRECTORS NOTE BY THIERRY DEMAIZIÈRE AND ALBAN TEURLAI. We are portraitists and we followed Benjamin Millepied throughout the creation of his first show as Director of Dance at the Opéra National de Paris. By agreeing to let us film him, he put his legitimacy on the line from the first day of rehearsals, since it is in the heat of the action that this man of abundant energy reveals himself through his choreography work, his relationship with the dancers, and his dealings with the ballet s management. We follow his creative process, the pathways of his imagination, his ambitions, each of stage of his work. He is the central character in the film, in the midst of the key players in his production. Every week, he confides in the camera about his doubts, his progress, and his discoveries. The visual approach is unadorned, shunning sophistication, yet carefully framed and focused. This results in a resolutely documentary look, but with an artistic touch which makes this a theatrical film. We want the spectator to be immersed in this universe, consciously or not, and to be faced with a story that has never before been told in this way, with the distinct feeling of being plunged into a genuine narrative.
BENJAMIN MILLEPIED Benjamin Millepied, former principal dancer of the New York City Ballet, choreographer of the L.A. Dance Project, traveled the world before returning to his homeland to succeed Brigitte Lefèvre as Director of Dance at the Opéra National de Paris on 1 November 2014 a dream for this young man with a taste for risk and innovation. Born in Bordeaux in 1977, he spent part of his childhood in Senegal. He was introduced to dance by his mother, a teacher of African and contemporary dance. He joined the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse in Lyon aged 13, where he studied under Michel Rahn. During the summer of 1992, he attended a course at the School of American Ballet, which he joined in 1993. He won the Prix de Lausanne in 1994, and that same year, Jerome Robbins picked him to play the lead role in 2 & 3 Part Inventions, a piece created for students of the School of American Ballet. He joined the corps de ballet of the New York City Ballet in 1995, and was promoted to soloist in 1998 before becoming principal dancer in 2002. In parallel, he made his debut as a choreographer with Passages, which he created for students at the Lyon Conservatory in 2001. Numerous other works followed for various theaters and ballets around the world. From 2004 to 2005, he was also artistic director of the Mark Morris Dance Center of Bridgehampton in New York, then resident choreographer at the Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York (2006-2007). In 2010, he worked as choreographer and advisor on the Oscar-winning movie BLACK SWAN directed by Darren Aronofsky. In 2011, he left the New York City Ballet, directed five short films about dance, and founded his own company in Los Angeles, the L.A. Dance Project, a collective of creators which sets out to present dance in all its forms.
Benjamin Millepied is a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, and was also honored with the United States Artists Wynn Fellowship in 2007. His first decision at the Opéra de Paris was symbolic: Upon his arrival, he ordered the replacement of the old floorboards in the rehearsal studios with shock-absorbent flooring to protect the dancers from injuries. Since financing this from public funds would have taken too long, Millepied himself found patrons to pay for the work, providing a powerful illustration of his approach. Benjamin Millepied has since created a choreography academy and a health unit. As a kid, I danced the way you do drawings. BENJAMIN MILLEPIED
HIS COLLABORATORS Benjamin Millepied likes to bring together talents of today to form a creative laboratory. He works alongside contemporary artists such as the stylist Iris van Herpen, designer of outlandish costumes; musician Nico Muhly, who has worked with some of the leading lights of the electronic scene; conductor Maxime Pascal; the collective UVA, creators of lighting designs that interact with bodies; and the corps de ballet itself, which is like a varied garden made up of 154 different flowers. The new Director of Dance sets out to instill a freedom of being in all the dancers chosen for this first show, whether principals or not, and has adapted his choreography to bring out the best in each. Sixteen will perform. IRIS VAN HERPEN Born in 1984 in Wamel, in the Netherlands, Iris van Herpen graduated in 2006 from the ArtEZ Institute in Arnhem. The same year, she started to work for designer Alexander McQueen in London and presented her first collection in 2007 in Amsterdam. Her very individual approach to fashion attracted the attention of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture in Paris, of which she became a guest member in 2011. The same year, Björk commissioned some dresses from her for the cover of her album Biophilia and to wear on stage. Time Magazine named another of Iris van Herpen s dresses as one of the best inventions of the year. In March 2013, she presented her first ready-to-wear collection in Paris, embodied by her muse, the artist and musician Grimes. In 2014, she received the ANDAM Fashion Award Grand Prize. Her work is currently the focus of an exhibition at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, which runs from 7 November 2015 to 15 May 2016.
NICO MUHLY Born in 1981 in Vermont, Nico Muhly graduated from Columbia University in English literature (2003). He continued his studies with a master s in musical composition at the Juilliard School in New York in 2004. Since 2002, he has been writing pieces for orchestra and composing works for smaller ensembles, soloists and choirs. He has collaborated with many artists, including Philip Glass, Björk, and Antony (leader of the group Antony and the Johnsons). In 2004, he worked on the orchestration of the score for Jonathan Demme s thriller THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, and with the author and illustrator of children s books, Maira Kalman, he wrote a series of songs based on The Elements of Style by Strunk and White. Regularly called upon by Benjamin Millepied, he has already composed the music for several of his ballets. In 2006, he directed the performances of Amoveo, a ballet by Benjamin Millepied created for music by Philip Glass for the Opera Ballet. MAXIME PASCAL The son of musician parents, Maxime Pascal began learning the piano early in life, then the violin in Carcassonne. He entered the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse in Paris in 2005, following classes in writing, musical analysis and orchestration. He soon felt the urge to conduct and joined classes run by François-Xavier Roth. In 2008, while still a student, he founded the orchestra Le Balcon (named after a work by Jean Genet), in conjunction with composers Pedro Garcia-Velasquez, Juan-Pablo Carreño and Mathieu Costecalde, pianist Alphonse Cemin, and sound engineer Florent Derex. The particularity of this orchestra with variable geometry, which dips into all kinds of repertoires, is its use of sound techniques. Maxime Pascal used this to develop his vision of a musical show: It must be a compelling and radical experience for the audience. This led him to work with leading figures such as Pierre Boulez, George Benjamin, Michaël Levinas and Arthur Lavandier. Maxime Pascal be-
came the resident conductor at the Athénée Théâtre Louis-Jouvet in 2013. There, with the Le Balcon, he staged Richard Strauss s opera Ariadne auf Naxos directed by Benjamin Lazar. Elsewhere, his great fascination for the operas of Stockhausen led him to work in Cologne with Suzanne Stephens and Kathinka Pasveer, and to perform several scenes from these operas in Paris. He is strongly attached to promoting amateur symphonic performance, and since 2008 has been musical director of the Impromptu, an amateur Parisian orchestra. In November 2011, the Académie des Beaux-Arts awarded him the Prix de Musique de la Fondation Simone et Cino Del Duca for his early career s work. In March 2014, he became the first Frenchman to win the Nestlé and Salzburg Festival Young Conductors Award. UNITED VISUAL ARTISTS United Visual Artists was founded in London in 2003 by Matthew Clark, Chris Bird and Ash Nehru, and is a digital art collective. UVA explores the relationship between reality and virtual experiments, between technology and the physical experience in all its complexity. UVA has worked on several commissions for Artwise Curators, The Creators Project, the Gaîté Lyrique, etc. Their work has been exhibited in several London institutions and galleries, such as the Southbank Centre, the Wellcome Collection and the British Library, as well as elsewhere in the world, including Barcelona, Beijing, Hong Kong, Melbourne, Saint Petersburg, and so on. LUCY CARTER Lucy Carter is a graduate of the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. She accompanied Wayne McGregor since his debut at the Random Dance Company in 1992, as well as for his creations at the Royal Ballet. She has also worked with choreographers Lionel Hoche, Arthur Pita, Shobana Jeyasingh, Douglas Lee, Marguerite Donlon, Fin Walker, Matthew Dunster and CoisCéim. She also works on lyrical pieces, stage plays and musicals.
THE TROUPE MAIN FEMALE DANCERS Léonore Baulac, Éléonore Guérineau, Aubane Philbert, Marion Barbeau, Letizia Galloni, Laurène Levy, Ida Viikinkoski, Jennifer Visocchi (rehearsals and up to the gala performance, subsequently replaced). REPLACEMENTS Roxane Stojanov (danced from the first performance), Amélie Joannidès, Camille Bon. MAIN MALE DANCERS Axel Ibot, Florimond Lorieux, Germain Louvet, Allister Madin, Hugo Marchand, Marc Moreau, Yvon Demol, Jeremy-Loup Quer. REPLACEMENTS Cyril Chokroun (danced for the dress rehearsal), Florent Melac, Pablo Legasa, Isaac Lopes Gomes, Antonin Monié.
FOUR QUESTIONS FOR BENJAMIN MILLEPIED What was it like having the film crew present during those intimate moments? I soon forgot about them. Their presence was more of a pleasure than a discomfort. I was quite at ease. We see you taking notes, sketching, filming, and taking photographs throughout the film. Are images an essential tool in your work? Yes, I love taking photographs. It s difficult to capture the beauty of an instant through the imagination alone. Filming is quite simply a tool for doing my job. Video allows me to take a certain distance from my ballet, to correct and improve it. What did you think when you saw this documentary? It was very interesting to see myself at work in the theater. That distance helped me understand a lot of things; it s a real help today. Which films about dance, either fiction of documentary, left the greatest impression on you? THE RED SHOES, BLACK SWAN (of course!), WHITE NIGHTS, and SINGIN IN THE RAIN.
CREW 110-minute documentary Directed by THIERRY DEMAIZIÈRE and ALBAN TEURLAI Produced by STÉPHANIE SCHORTER Original music PIERRE AVIAT, published by FALABRACKS Camera ALBAN TEURLAI Additional camerawork ÉRIC DUMONT Sound EMMANUEL GUIONET Editing ALICE MOINE and ALBAN TEURLAI A FALABRACKS/OPÉRA NATIONAL DE PARIS coproduction In association with CANAL+ With the participation of the CENTRE NATIONAL DU CINÉMA ET DE L IMAGE ANIMÉE, the PROCIREP PRODUCERS ORGANIZATION, and the ANGOA. International Sales UPSIDE DISTRIBUTION Falabracks - Opéra National de Paris 2015
WWW.UPSIDEDISTRIBUTION.COM