Saturday 12 September | 11am – 7pm | Art Not Shame
In collaboration with our good friends at Art Not Shame, we will be screening two films documenting the musical life of Joëlle Léandre on the event of her 75th birthday. Take a break from the festival crowds and slip into the quiet, coolness of the ANS gathering space to lose yourself in these extraordinary works by French independent filmmaker, Christian Pouget.
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Affamée (2019, 52 min.) screening at ~ 11:00, 13:00, 15:00, 17:00
“Meeting with Joëlle Léandre around her Manisfesto work, Can you hear me ?, a double bass player’s portrait, through her composition for ten improvising musicians, poetic evocation, and discovery of her existential creativity.”
—Christian Pouget
“Christian Pouget and Antoine Traverson have created a work where artistic and political commitment become one. Affamée (“Hungry”), co-produced by 1001 Productions and Vià Occitanie with the support of the National Center for Cinema and the Moving Image, showcases the vibrant energy of Joëlle Léandre. Her work Can You Hear Me?, commissioned by Alois Fischer, lends itself to essential questions.”
—Mario Barroni, Citizen Jazz
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Duende: Joëlle Léandre Solo (2023, 54 min.) screening at ~ 12:00, 14:00, 16:00, 18:00
“Immersion in her visceral and savage universe of the solo, eruptive art springing from the world tree like a howl of rage and a song of love, black and white image, symbolic atmosphere of a diurnal or noctural forest, metaphoric masks, tribal blues in the midst of the chaos of a landscape of brick and metal in ruins, sounds from the imperceptible to the telluric, the gripping song of the strings and the voice of the witch of the bow, Joëlle Léandre resists alone, indomitable, with her Duende.”
—Christian Pouget
“In Duende (‘passion’), director and poet Christian Pouget has filmed Léandre playing in a series of dramatic outdoor and indoor settings. She bows ferociously in primeval forests where ancient trees loom as spirits and the bass become their voice, as in Yggdrasil; in tiny rooms, like an ancient pilgrim church, the bass becomes oracular. On Blues Roots, Léandre calls up emotion on a scale immediately reminiscent of the late Charles Mingus, simultaneously plucking, bowing and muttering in a kind of universal blues.
“Together Léandre and Pouget summon up the spirit of Khaos in the midst of a mine that has turned countryside to industrial wasteland. It’s a moving visual evocation of music’s power to raise spirits, both ancient and contemporary.”
—Stuart Broomer, Musicworks
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An independent filmmaker of Super 8 fiction films in the 1970s, founder of Béziers Jazz Action in the 1980s, a passionate music and jazz enthusiast, and
a columnist and contributor to Radio Pomarède and the Jazz In webzine, Christian Pouget began directing music documentaries in the early 2000s:
“Luz, Pure Soul of Free Jazz” (2014), “Théo Ceccaldi, Body of Strings” (2016), “Joëlle Léandre, Famished ” (2019), “Duende” (2023), “Strugle, Life, Music” (2023), and “Maelström for Improvisers” (2025). He is currently working on a portrait of the Portuguese trumpeter, Susana Santos Silva.
Réalisateur indépendant de films de fiction super 8 dans les années 70, fondateur de Béziers Jazz Action dans les années 80, passionné de musique et e jazz, chroniqueur et collaborateur de radio Pomarède et du Webzine Jazz In, Christian Pouget s’est lancé dans la réalisation de documentaires musicaux au début des années 2000, « Luz, âme pure d’un jazz libre » (2014), « Théo Ceccaldi, corps à cordes » (2016), « Joëlle Léandre, Affaméé » (2019), « Duende » (2023), « Strugle, Life, Music » (2023), « Maelström for improvisers » (2025). Il travaille actuellement sur la réalisation d’un portrait de la trompettiste portugaise, Susana Santos Silva.
film trailers