Environmental disasters have occurred. The occupants of a hotel, stayed there by choice or necessity, form a new community composed of former employees and ex-vacationers. Divided between elective affinities and authoritarian speakings, the group oscillates between a desire to enjoy the disorder and a will to develop another way of living together. Gradually, they withdraw into autarky. One evening, under the illusory threat of an attack, they all take refuge in the basement of the hotel. However, one day they will have to leave.

The work of writing the dialogues proceed in part from a cut-up of critical texts and sentences coming from media sources taken for their enunciation. Then it will be tested and increased on the stage during filmed rehearsals bringing together the actors. This first step of work, constituting in itself a creation, will be shown in the form of a video film and/or a performance acting this sharing of words between the actors, notably as part of the UNVUE program.

Les Dévastés

La Villa is the fourth short fiction film in the ensemble Les Dévastés, an exploded minimal disaster film deconstructing the genre’s expectations – of expenditure, spectacle, plausibility. Les Dévastés is divided into several parts based on principles of heterogeneity and reflections. The previous films, Le Rêve de la Grotte pré-historique (2017), La Maison dévastée (2017) and Les Rescapés (2020), have been shown, in film or installation form, among others at the Festival Côté Court de Pantin (selections in 2018 and 2021), at the Espace d’en bas and The Film Gallery.

Project supported by EDESTA, ESTCA, LABEX Arts H2H and EUR ArTeC.