Étienne Caire
Directing
Biography
Étienne Caire aka Riojim runs the Atelier MTK in Grenoble, France where he teaches DIY film processing, contact and optical printing and editing. He is particularly attracted to abstract animation, the pleasure of physically modifying images on the film via twisted and other chemical treatments frowned on by professional labs. He pushes the possibilities of the emulsion to the edge. The material produced in the laboratory becomes a work of improvisation integrating all the parameters of projection. By means of prepared projectors, he applies severe treatment to the projector and plays with the film and the homemade optical sound on film to create a real visual music.
Known For
Walking towards the fire. In a ceaseless stream of light, people, landscapes and objects lead us to mysterious regions. French filmmaker Patrick Bokanowski’s work is hard to classify - and all the richer for it. Together with his wife Michèle, whose musique concrète compositions form the basis of the sound design, Bokanowski offers a prolonged, dense and visually visceral experience of the kind that is rare in cinema today. Difficult to define and locate, its strangeness is quite unique.
Solar Beats
The World Trade Centre attack was perhaps a foretold disaster waiting to happen. The proof is in this highly incandescent film: a rapid-fire montage of images taken from 20 years of Hollywood blockbusters. Edited and crafted with mastery in the Metamkine laboratory.
Goldman Crash
The do-it-yourself film lab Atelier MTK in Grenoble, France is the cradle of the performance group Metamkine, but also for instance of Lafoxe. Etienne Caire and Gaëlle Rouard are the driving forces behind the lab and have developed a 16mm performance with its very own signature. The basic material for Lafoxe came from old Hollywood films. After extensive processing in the lab, these bits and pieces are put on the silver screen again using several film projectors at once. The result is a dynamic form of widescreen, which they have dubbed hyperscope. The sound is a live mix of the original optical soundtracks.