of the sun, that it exists

Clermont Charlotte

"du soleil, que ça existe" examines the temporalities through which the body forms, stores, and creates what we translate as the real. Focusing on longing, distance, and language, this text-based project explores the expansiveness of both language and landscape, by installing spaciousness in the dialogue and by considering landscapes as bodies.

Because of veils that obscure or illuminate the images, the inability to perceive is experienced at times in almost-erased spaces, at others in velvety dark spaces, where only details are revealed through the flickering of the film’s solarization. The rhythm between light and darkness echoes the movements of the sea, adding aqueous and sensuous layers to the film, where images seem to exist outside of the often narrative space of cinema, becoming instead paintings or photographs in motion.

The overall feeling of this short film is inspired by Marguerite Duras’ The Malady of Death (trans. 1986) in which she describes, at the end of the book, how a window overlooking a dark sea at night becomes an element central to her work.

Production Year
2025
Duration
00:09:05
Asiasana
Original Title
du soleil, que ça existe
English Title

of the sun, that it exists

Production Countries
Finland
Dialogue
Yes
Sound
Yes
Cast
Charlotte Clermont (Author), Charlotte Clermont (Cinematographer), Charlotte Clermont (Composer), Charlotte Clermont (Director), Charlotte Clermont (Editor), Charlotte Clermont (Producer), Charlotte Clermont (Script), Charlotte Clermont (Sound Design), Saara Karppinen (Actor), Antti Markkanen (Actor), Suomen Kulttuurirahasto (Funder)
Press Photos
With a background in experimental cinema, Charlotte Clermont creates a dialogue between video and audio explorations to examine our perceptions of the real. She holds a Master’s degree in Time and Space from Uniarts Helsinki’s Academy of Fine Arts. Her master’s project "du soleil, que ça existe" was nominated for the Nordic and Baltic Young Artist Award. Her works have been presented in Canada and internationally at festivals and exhibitions such as the Festival international du film sur l’art (Canada), Fracto (Germany), Festival des cinémas différents et expérimentaux de Paris (France), IFF Rotterdam (Netherlands), Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Germany), CROSSROADS (USA), Arctic Moving Image and Film Festival (Norway), and Edinburgh International Film Festival (Scotland).