Frank Smith

Frank Smith invited Arnold Pasquier to open the screening with Terrazzo, a short film that questions the relationships between interior landscapes and eternal reality. 

Arnold Pasquier, Terrazzo (HD video, col., 15 min, 2023) 
With Thanos Samaras 

Alone in an apartment in Athens, a man experiences a memory. He expresses his solitude in contact with the rooms, in a secret ceremony in which his body seeks to embrace an absence. Opposite, a walk takes place in an urban park whose paths lead to a panoramic view over the city. This promenade between nature and architecture comes in echo to his quest, his search for completeness. 

Frank Smith, Le Film des îles solitaires (HD video, col., 21 min, 2023) 
Made as part of the “Résidences sur mesure plus +” programme of the Institut français 
Production Bureau d'investigations poétiques / Sans Production 

The Liancourt Rocks, also called Dokdo in Korean (which means “solitary islands”) and Takeshita in Japanese, are a small group of islands in the Sea of Japan that are controlled de facto by South Korea but are also claimed by Japan. They are at the centre of an unresolved serious dispute between the two countries and are currently placed under the South Korean jurisdiction of Ulleng Island, which is 87km away, and under the Japanese jurisdiction of Okinoshima, which is 157km away. 
“We went there one day, it was late autumn, it was cold and damp: we wanted to go and see. 
We saw the rocks and the sea. We saw the crowd of Koreans, a flag in one hand, a camera in the other.  
We stood in front of the view: it was a gesture of propaganda. 
We refused to film.” 

Frank Smith, Le Film du 38e parallèle (HD video, colour, 56 min, 2023) 
Made as part of the “Résidences sur mesure plus +” programme of the Institut français 
Production Bureau d'investigations poétiques / Sans Production 

Le Film du 38e parallèle focuses on the plural, divided and discontinuous reality of the demilitarised zone that separates North and South Korea. It aims to question its visual potential and thereby exhaust everything there is to see, at the limit of military restrictions and the accessibility of the place and in a particularly tense geopolitical context (regular intercontinental missiles shot by North Korea towards the Sea of Japan).  
This chaotic quest for forbidden footage attempts to answer the following question: what can we see when we are not allowed?