Screenings & Events

24/06 Maison Descartes, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

In order to get feedback and to thank the Maison Descartes for their hospitality during our shoot of the Courtyard scene, we organised a 'sneak preview' of a draft version of Mère Folle. At that point the film was still 140 minutes long, thank you for your patients! Needless to say, all the constructive criticism we got was taken forward to the next cut.

26/09 Madness & Arts Festival, Haarlem, The Netherlands

Filmschuur, Haarlem, The Netherlands. The very first screening of Mère Folle to an audience of people interested in the link between madness and creativity. Many of the actors, friends and family were present.

14/10 Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, The Netherlands

This presentation obviously attracted primarily an audience of artists and art-minded people. They asked about the relationship between past and present, the vision of cultural history coming through the treatment of madness. The doublings of characters also came up: the pair of two Fools, and the double roles of actors, such as Fleur Sulmont (Ariste and Young Fool) and Thomas Germaine (Herlat, Antonin, patient, Artaud)

28/10 ASAP Association for the Study of Art in the Present, Trier, Germany

In the ancient Roman town of Trier, we screened the film the Broadway Theatre and conducted a three-hour discussion the next morning. One of the commentators mentioned the benefits of the multilingualism, as well as the constructive relationship to the past and its violence (see reviews page - Amir Eshel)

1/11 Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA

Brown University, Cogut Center for the humanities, Metcalf Auditorium at the Chace Center, Rhode Island School of Design. Our first screening in the US was in an academic environment. We discussed the relationship between noise and music in the film's soundtrack. People were especially interested in the individual performances that made the acting within the group scenes a collective performance.

2/11 Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA

Yale University, Film Studies Auditorium, New Haven. At Yale, the audience was a mix of film scholars and psychiatrists. This led to an interesting discussion about being mad versus playing mad.

3/11 New York University, New York

Tisch School of the Arts, Department of Media, Culture, and Communication, Michelson Theater. In the brand-new Michelson Theater in this prestigious film school, the discussion included questions about our genre of 'theoretical fiction'.

4/11 Huntingdon Cinema Arts Center, Long Island

In collaboration with the State University of New York at Stony Brook. The audience of this independent community cinema comprised people who had read about the project in the listings of their cinema. Many asked about the relationship to the second world war.

5/11 Columbia University, New York

Lifetime Screening Room, Comparative Literature and Society. The largely academic audience showed interest in the relationship between madness and war, but also exile. The sound track came up again.

6/11 Austen Riggs Center, Stockbridge, Mass.

In this centre for intensive Psychotherapy in an Open Therapeutic Community, Stockbridge, Mass., we had many psychoanalysts of persuasions similar to what our film shows, as well as philosophers and other interested people. It was a homecoming of sorts, where the audience applauded at all the insider jokes, and the exceptional performance of Françoise. They complimented the film especially for capturing the analytic situation so precisely, while still using fiction and visual exuberance.

12/11 Freud Museum, Vienna, Austria

Imagine how proud we were to present the film to a full house in this historical place at Berggasse 22, Vienna. We had a local audience, many with an interest in psychoanalysis but also many others, and Françoise was present as well. Many questions concerned changes between the book and the film, which was a very good topic given Françoise's presence.

28/11 Fondation Nant, Vevey, Switzerland

In collaboration with the State University of New York at Stony Brook. The audience of this independent community cinema comprised people who had read about the project in the listings of their cinema. Many asked about the relationship to the second world war.

1/12 Guggenheim Bilbao Museum, Spain

In relation to our Anachronisms installation, after a lecture connecting the Golden Age exhibition (curated by Jochen Sander) we presented the film to the regional art lovers of the Basque country. There were comments about the avoidance of a voyeuristic documentary approach, as well as the usual caricature of mad people.

8/12 KIZ RoyalKino, in collaboration with the Kunsthaus, Graz, Austria

In Graz, thanks to the collaboration between these two institutions, we had a very mixed audience of cinema lovers and art groupies, our youngest audience yet. They raised the issue of our particular take on madness, from the perspective of the history of violence.

11/12 Cinema Apollo, Pécs, Hungary

In the current European Capital of Culture, we showed the film in the context of a conference/festival on Intermedialities, along with films by Hungarian directors. We also exhibited the installation The Space In-Between in the Museum Janus Pannonius, Pécs, Hungary (see Installations page). This was our first 'competition' between a two-screen, spatialised version and the single-screen of the film itself. The idea of the installation project was strongly encouraged by the audience.