#empressofkalumina

[thexfridax]

Dear Portrait Nation,

A little idea became a big idea and then a slightly more realistic idea (😅), and here it is. We’ve created a website and call for submission to gather and showcase all the lovely Portrait fanart there is and to come.

We hope you’ll take part, promote, parlez about this initiative. We’d love for this to be a community project that brings you / us joy. Celebrating a seminal piece of art. Telling a love story that is lived and remembered... (No biggie, but we’ve also seen your fanart, folks! 😁)

Big shout-outs to my companions @empressofkalumina, @mlleclaudine, and @rosedelosvientos for bringing this project to life with me. Muchas gracias for your patience, guidance, and being absolute badasses 😘.

Without further ado, may we present to you...

Open call for submissions Project 28 offers a place to showcase original artwork inspired by Céline Sciamma's extraordinary film, Portrait of a Lady on Fire | Portrait de la jeune fille en feu. Like the titular painting that wasn't commissioned, or the portrait that the artist kept and the one that stayed in her studio. We want artists to share their own love story for the film and showcase them through art. In celebration of that film's spirit of collaboration, we welcome artists of all abilities and working in any medium they wish. All submitted artwork must be complete - no works in progress - and artists must be at least 18 years of age. There is no limit to the number of pieces an artist may submit. We ask only that all artwork be recognisably related to the film and remain respectful to the characters and the actors and creators who brought them to life.

Further details, along with the submission form, can be found on...

Our website https://sites.google.com/view/project-twentyeight/home

Updates will also be posted on...

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/paginaventotto

On y va! Let’s build this ship together! 🖼️ 👻 🔥

—Ros @thexfridax

[thexfridax]

Adèle Haenel

via Pinterest [1]

[thexfridax]

Céline Sciamma, Noémie Merlant and Adèle Haenel on their mutual gazes in POALOF

The tension of the film relies on the gaze and the looks. How do you embody that and build the dramaturgy around the desire to see? The first half of the film is centred around the desire to see somebody's face, which is what I think cinema and portraiture is about. I wanted to have this dramatic effect of discovering this face, the suspense about the face of somebody. That is also the pitch of the film: that she has to paint [Héloïse] without her knowing. So the urge, the will to capture the traits, the gesture, the attitude of somebody in a kind of a voyeuristic way, first as a spy, and then it is all eroded into consent.

+++

I think that what changed her with this story is something that is still living in her and still changing her. It’s something alive, her story with Héloïse, forever. It didn’t change her from one point to another point in her story. It’s always in movement. There is the first portrait that didn’t really work because [Marianne] is stuck in the rules of this period, the ideas of this period, which is a patriarchal vision. She is a painter; she feels lucky to paint, so she follows the rules. Héloïse [sees the painting and] tells her, “This is not right; this is not you. You have done a painting, but this is not me, and this is not you.” So that’s what’s changed her. She learned to have her own vision that is the female gaze. In this movie, the female gaze is Marianne’s intimacy, her own ideas, her own vision, what she really sees, and how she sees it. How she sees how Héloïse really is, not through this male gaze, but through the real gaze of a woman.

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I read the script and thought, “This is the story of someone seen through the eyes of someone else.” My character, Héloïse, is seen through the eyes of Marianne. If I have to portray this character who is perceived, I have to create not as if it was a person, but as if it was in itself a painting. The gaze is getting warmer and warmer [as the film progresses] because the intimacy is growing, so the character would change. It’s not only because of love that she is changing, but because the way she's looked at is changing. The person who is looking at her is actually falling in love.

—

Extracts from Portraits of Resistance [Please go and buy a copy!]

GIF created by @empressofkalumina​, butchered / re-edited by @thexfridax​ // [A video shared by @cerf-et-loutre reminded me of this short moment before it all went downhill (emotionally speaking).]