Un rêve plus long que la nuit + Realms
West Coast Premiere of the 4k restoration, with actress Laura Duke Condominas, Realms director Maximilla Lukacs, and Samantha Pleet in person
Presented with curator Miriam Bale
Saturday, April 6
11:30am
2220 Arts + Archives
Director: Niki de Saint Phalle
France, 1976, 82 minutes, DCP
In a dream, a little girl wishes to become a grown-up and finds herself in a world of sorcery, violence, exploitation and extended drum solos in renowned artist Niki de Saint Phalle’s surreal allegory.
An underseen gem of 1970s French avant-garde cinema, Niki de Saint Phalle’s second feature deconstructs fairy tale narratives and imagery through the lens of psychoanalysis. Underscoring the Freudian overtones, de Saint Phalle’s daughter Laura Duke Condominas (who was also cast as a princess in Robert Bresson’s Lancelot du Lac) plays the spellbound protagonist, while the artist plays both her mother and the madame who employs her in a magical kingdom’s brothel. The film expands on de Saint Phalle's preoccupation with the eternal conflict between female independence and patriarchy’s alliance with the war machine evinced in her previous feature, Daddy (1973), co-directed with Peter Whitehead, who composed the music for this film. (The astonishing costumes worn by de Saint Phalle were designed by Marc Bohan, couturier for Dior, the fashion house that funded this restoration.)
In French and Swiss German with English subtitles
A Film Desk release.
The 4K restoration of Un rêve plus long que la nuit was completed using the original 16mm camera and sound negatives. The restored version corresponds to the edit in 1976 when the film was first released. The restoration was supervised by Arielle de Saint Phalle and realized at L’Immagine Ritrovata (Bologna-Paris) in 2023. Restoration funding provided by Dior.
Official Selection: New York Film Festival
Preceded by:
REALMS
Director: Maximilla Lukacs
USA, 2022, 5 minutes, DCP
In their 5th film together, director Maximilla Lukacs and designer Samantha Pleet bring you REALMS. A surreal fairy tale starring Natasha Khan (Bat For Lashes) as The Oracle of Delphi on a quest to capture the mythical, all powerful Golden Egg from a dragon’s lair. The oracle peers through her crystal ball into colorful, fantastical worlds where time and reality blur and giant mushrooms and flowers (created by artist Elena Stonaker) come to life! Featuring beloved characters from Bob Baker Marionettes, we follow an enchanting puppeteer Titania (Ceylon Baginski) on a journey through the hypnotic realms of the imagination.