Simon Welch

RECENT FILMS

All roads lead to Road (2018)

HD video, color, stereo, 16/9, 8'30"

 A film portrait of the director’s parents, is shown in parallel with a notorious 19th century child murder investigation to which they have been linked by a number of coincidences throughout their lives. 

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Capsule (2016)

HD video, b&w and colour, stereo, 16/9 , 9'50"

Synopsis: A complicated birth in a French maternity hospital is the subject of a film presented as though it were a time capsule and a future birthday gift. Through this real event, the film explores the notion of cinematic realism and the aesthetics of suffering, while delving into family and cinema history.

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Domain and Range (2015)

HD video, b&w and colour, stereo, 16/9 , 6'

Synopsis: An anecdote about a dead lizard in a French vineyard serves as a pretext to explore family history which in turn raises questions concerning the relationship between art and deterministic belief systems and between man and nature. The notion of transformation is therefore explored both in terms of the content of the film and the effect of filming itself.

 

Focus (2014)

HD video, colour, stereo, 16/9 , 7'35"

Synopsis: Pierre, a retired French miner who lives surrounded by birds and various domestic pets, describes how his life has been blighted by supernatural events. References made to ghosts parallel sequences showing industrial remnants that persist in the northern French landscape as traces of a recent but nonetheless bygone age.  The title of the film relates both to cinematic technique and poltergeist activity and is derived for the Latin word for "home". The presence of caged birds recalls the use of canaries as warning systems in mines and corresponds to the fact that, wherever he goes, Pierre cannot escape forces (whether real or imaginary, psychological or socio-economic) that are not bound by geographical and physical constraints.

 

Prelude (2014)

HD video, colour, stereo, 16/9 , 7'05"

Synopsis: Sequences of a pre-adolescent girl rehearsing a Bach prelude and struggling to keep up with the tyrannical precision of metronomic rhythm are juxtaposed with images of her daily life, thereby scoring the soundtrack for her own “film”. The metronome precisely beats time in a mechanical rather than a “musical” manner and may be a help or hindrance to development. The repetitious nature of piano practice suggests that the girl’s existence is also repetitive and that negative aspects of her relationship with her mother are a prelude for future relationships. 

 

Cast (2012)

HD video, colour, stereo, 16/9 , 6’40”

Synopsis : In the "demi-monde" of night fishing, anglers on a French beach cast their lines. The camera follows their night-long toiling in obscurity, the contrast provided by the limited light sources resembling a scene from a baroque painting. Thus, a relatively ordinary activity takes on an otherworldly aspect, becoming an allegory for contemporary existence as well as for artistic production itself.