Interview with the directors of Facs of Life:  Silvia Maglioni and Graeme Thomson  
conducted in Paris by Anna Powell 
Video via Helen Darby

About Facs of Life

From Versus Laboratory:

Facs of Life is a film of poetic/conceptual dispositifs that explores some of the multiple yet singular trajectories of Deleuze’s machinic thought in relation both to the revolutionary spirit of the University of Vincennes/Paris 8 (1969-80) and the biopolitical conditions of the present moment. The film aims to trace a cartography by following, but equally by inventing a series of conceptual lines and existential territories starting from different ‘encounters’ ::: with the woods of Vincennes, former site of the University complex (demolished in a single night in 1980), with a number of Deleuze’s old students, with the videos of his 1970s courses, but also with the University of Paris VIII at St Denis as it is today, the students who frequent it and inevitably with the phantoms of revolution that continue to haunt our own desires. Our film proposes neither a sociological analysis or a historical thesis of these events and conditions. Its aim is rather to follow the material destiny of a certain line and practice of thought through its becomings in the daily lives and creative trajectories of a number of characters who experienced it first hand. In this sense, Facs of Life situates itself in a fluctuating intermezzo between cinema, video art, essay, music, documentary, fiction and poetry. Rather than constituting separate entities the dispositifs will be interwoven through a rhythmic montage of series and variations, based on certain key-words/hypotheses, permitting the subjects to remain in the middle of things, or in a being-between.

Facs of Life 
2009, 1h55, colour 
Written, directed and edited by: Silvia Maglioni & Graeme Thomson. Camera: Graeme Thomson. Additional Camera: Jean-Noël Aoun, Igor Galabovski. Assistant Camera: Ishan Shapiro. Steadicam : Andrew Nakajima. Sound: Silvia Maglioni. Additional Sound: Vincent Rioux. Sound editing: Silvia Maglioni, Graeme Thomson. Sound Mix: Gilles Benardeau (Auditorium ARCHIPEL). Original Music & Sound Treatments: Julien Bancilhon, Nicolas Gerber, Graeme Thomson. Assistant Editor: Massimiliano Minissale.

Silvia Maglioni & Graeme Thomson are filmmakers and interdisciplinary artists and researchers. Following formal and informal studies in literature, cinema, philosophy and music (Italy, UK, France, US) they began making sound and video installations, photo-essays, experimental radio programmes, multimedia performances and seminars (recently at Fondazione Pistoletto Cittadellarte/Biella, Bétonsalon/Paris, Mains d’Oeuvres/Saint-Ouen, Festival de Cinémas Différents/Paris, Gasworks/London, Stedelijk Museum/Amserdam, MuHKA Museum/Antwerp, Betonsalon/Paris, Kunstenzentrum Z33/Hasselt, European Media Art Festival/Osnabrueck), defamiliarizing and remixing cultural texts and products and deconstructing modes of spectacular representation. Additionally, they have published numerous texts and articles on literature, cinema, contemporary art, critical theory, new media and experimental didactics. Their films include a short cinétract Wolkengestalt, a chance meeting of Goethe, meteorology, Romantic painting and September 11 (DVD produced by Il Trifoglio Nero Gallery/distributed by CJC) and La Nuit de la peinture (in post-production). They are members of Collectif Jeune Cinéma (Paris), of the international plateform Rhizome (New York) and recently, along with other independent filmmakers, they have founded the platform of critical reflection cinemautonome. They are currently artists in residence at Mains d’Œuvres where they are preparing an exhibition, “blown up!”, around the idea of exploded cinema in relation to Facs of Life. 

View trailer

More information: 
http://facsoflife.wordpress.com/
http://otolithgroup.org/index.php?m=search&search=Facs+of+Life&st=t 
http://cargocollective.com/terminal-beach