LES BOUCHES
—
2024
24'
Two barrel organ players roam the streets of Juárez, a district of Mexico City. They play their music and ask passers-by for money, while a couple of tourists from Paris set up an insurance fraud...
DIRECTOR
Valentin Merz
with Elsie Mazariegos, Elena Gore, Juan Pablo Villalobos, Robin mognetti, Valentin Merz.
Screenplay : Valentin Merz, Maria Buzhor
DOP : Robin Mognetti & Pierre Clemenceau
Editing : Valentin Merz & Sebastian del Valle
Sound : David Muñoz
Sound editing and Mixing : Adrien Kessler
Executive producer : Juan Pablo Villalobos
PRODUCTION
Andrea Film www.andreafilm.com
CO-PRODUCTION
Laterna Films louise@laternafilms.com
www.laternafilms.com
MI ORGANILLO
—
2023
4'
A journey to a mysterious place on the outskirts of Mexico City where birth, life and death dance to the same tune.
Throughout the festival, the protagonists of the film "Mi organillo" will be touring the streets of Locarno with their organs, handing out no fewer than 4,500 postcards. Each one is unique, representing a different moment in the film. Placed end to end, they reconstruct the storyline. In this way, festival-goers not only immerse themselves in foreign worlds by watching the film, they also participate in the story.
DIRECTOR
Valentin Merz
with Francisco Arellano Pérez, Coral Velázquez, Jorge Cruz Velázquez, Martín Jonathan Hernández Pérez, Miguel Ángel Jiménez Salazar, Ramón Sánchez Olarte, Reynaldo Díaz Vicente, Luis Miguel Pérez Licona.
DOP : Robin Mognetti
Editing : Sebastian del Valle
Sound : David Muñoz
Sound editing and Mixing : Adrien Kessler
PRODUCTION
Andrea Film (CH), Locarno Film Festival
DE NOCHE LOS GATOS SON PARDOS
—
2022
110'
Valentin is shooting a queerly gaudy piece of heritage fetish erotica. Then he's suddenly gone, and the cops are called in. A crew member from Spain has seen him in a dream lying dead in a forest, so it's okay that the police start investigating the case as a murder mystery. Especially as Valentin's corpse is found where the Spaniard envisioned him to be, only to vanish again. What's left for the poor cops other than pretend there's work to do, because the show must go on? Meanwhile in Mexico, or on the Other Side...
If you think that sounds weird, De noche los gatos son pardos is actually much weirder: dreamy, impulsive (one could also say 'coherently illogical'), shamelessly artsy, and heaven bent on surprising its viewers. Every character is named after its actor. The team embarked on this trip sans screenplay, trusting in their shared improvisation skills; all they knew is that the film's main characters would change several times, and therefore its tone, which includes everything from zombie flick to magic realism – think Potocki's Saragossa Manuscript or the Arabian Nights' Entertainment. Or don't think, at least not too much, but listen and see and marvel, and get lost in this forest of pleasures and delights!
DIRECTOR
Valentin Merz
with Robin Mognetti, Valentin Merz, Dogartzi Magunagoicoechea, Jean-Charles de Quillacq, Maxi Schmitz, Natalia Portnoy, Mara Thurnheer, Bishop Black.
DOP : Robin Mognetti
Editing : Andrea Vescan
Sound : Miguel Moraes Cabral
Sound editing and Mixing : Adrien Kessler
PRODUCTION
Andrea Film (CH)
FESTIVALS (2022-2023)
75° Locarno Film Festival
46a Mostra Internacional del Cinema de Sao Paulo
63rd Thessaloniki International Film Festival
19° Sevilla Festival de Cine Europeo
28e Chéries-Chéris Paris
20th Rome Independent Film Festival
52nd International Film Festival Rotterdam
58. Solothurner Filmtage
9th Berlin Critics' Week
11e La Fête du Slip Lausanne
20° Zinegoak Bilbao
PRICES
Special mention of the Jury for features in international competition, 75° Locarno Film Festival, 2022.
Best image conception, Zurich Filmstitung Price, 2023.
JEUNESSE!
—
2022
20'
Through the portrait of Alicia and her community, the film bears witness to a feminist narrative but also to the will to transmit her commitment to future generations. Alicia oscillates between the desire to perpetuate traditions and the will to shake up the established order.
DIRECTOR
Laura Morales
DOP : Robin Mognetti & Laura Morales
Steadicam : Aurel Ganz
Gaffer : Antoine Favre
Sound: Céline Carridroit & Nadine Hauser
Music : Jan Godde
Mixing : Vuk Vukmanovic
Editing : Romain Namura
Color grading : Boris Rabusseau
Sound editing and Mixing : Matthieu Fraticelli
PRODUCTION
AKKA films (CH)
FESTIVALS
RTS (emission FUTURA) (2022)
Zurich film Festival (2022)
GETTING A YOUNGER SISTER THINKING TO MYSELF
—
2021
25'
The short film depicts the French artist Jean-Charles de Quillacq performing his own alter-ego as he seeks for inspiration in his atelier, where his behaviour evokes excitement, effort and sex. Most of the time naked, Quillacq wears masks that strongly resemble the artist. The masks are alterations of his own face and those of his siblings. Over the course of the short film, the artist's alter-ego engages in domestic chores and repeats mechanical gestures that are difficult to classify. Masturbatory, almost autistic gestures that might trouble the spectators mind. The camera follows his body, under the inexpressive silicone masks, drawn into sexual and sometimes obscene actions, where the figure of the artist is cut up in a stream of piss and sweat. Quillacq's work explores questions of repetition, body functions, comedy and satirizes our relationship to the economic world and its capitalist logic. «Getting a younger sister thinking to myself» has been produced for an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris. It is either shown in a black cube or screened on a monitor.
DIRECTOR
Jean-Charles de Quillacq
DOP : Robin Mognetti
Editing : Andrea Vescan
Sound Design : Adrien Kessler
Color Grading : Charbon Studio
PRODUCTION
Andrea Film (CH)
FESTIVALS
MAC VAL, Vitry-sur-Seine, FR (2023)
Mudam, Luxembourg, LU (2023)
Anderson Gallery, Buffalo, USA (2022)
Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts Omaha, USA (2021)
Museum of Modern Art Paris, FR (2021)
UNTITLED SERIE
—
2014 - 2020
∞
An angry punk in Berlin or a pilgrim in Lourdes, a woman with a disability in the 19th century or a film director wallowing in his self-pity, the film embraces different identities, jumping through centuries and landscapes. Until the adventure takes a new turn and unfolds as a mysterious crime thriller with Youtubers, confined to a castle in France.
This project has been initiated by filmmaker Valentin Merz and the actress Maxi Schmitz. It's structured in various fragments that have been created over a period of six years, starting in 2014. They vary in terms of form and narrative quality. Some fragments are short, like a gesture and only sketch the characters and story, while others could be independent short films in themselves. It was important to express things that cannot be put into words, and to give free rein to our ideas, inspirations, logics and passions, while maintaining a tentative connection to reality. The film is an experimental laboratory where, throughout the course of several years of intimate and artistic collaboration, we have tested hybrid forms, both documentary and fictional.
DIRECTOR
Valentin Merz
with Maxi Schmitz, Jeanne Werner, Nele Jahnke.
SCRIPTWRITING : Valentin Merz, Maxi Schmitz
DOP : Stefan Neuberger, Robin Mognetti
Sound : César Fernandez
Editing : Valentin Merz, Robin Mognetti
Mixing : Adrien Kessler
PRODUCTION
Andrea Film (CH)
BRÜDER - EIN FAMILIENFILM
—
2019
18'
After twenty years of separation, brothers Adi and Valentin spend a week together. The film dives into a relationship where violence and tenderness seem to be the same thing.
Credits
DIRECTOR
Valentin Merz
with Adrian Merz et Valentin Merz.
DOP : Robin Mognetti
Sound : Jean-Charles de Quillacq
Editing : Valentin Merz
Mixing : Adrien Kessler
PRODUCTION
Andrea Film (CH)
FESTIVALS
Visions du Réel, 2020
IFF Message to Man, 2020
Solothurner Filmtage, 2021
Riga International Short Film Festival 2ANNAS, 2021
Brooklyn Film Festival, 2021
Shorts Mexico, 2021
KinoFest Greece, 2021
Tirana International Film Festival, 2021
Kasseler Dokfest, 2021