"Water Buffalo", Christelle Lheureux

While the television screens an episode of a soap opera about a child looking for his father during the Indochinese conflict in the Mekong Delta, a young Vietnamese spectator wallows in front of the screen, sweltering in the humidity of everyday urban life in Saigon. The two narratives, separate in time and space, are nonetheless presented through successive intertwinements and distanciations, forming a narrative mise en abîme. In these two stories facing each other, the collective communist imaginary meets everyday urban life in full capitalist expansion.

Educated at the Université d'Amiens and the Université de Paris 8, before studying at the Ecole des beaux-arts de Grenoble then at Le Fresnoy, Christelle Lheureux has directed a number of films and installations since 1997, which have been shown in both cinema and fine arts spaces. She also teaches cinema at the Ecole d'art et de design de Genève and develops collaborations with other artists, including Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Currently based in Paris, she created the production structure Third Home Films in 2006 with Antoine Segovia.