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Film-Installation with
Le Fresnoy - Studio National des Arts Contemporains

Featuring duo: Camille Zisswiller & Nicolas Lefebvre
Full original audio: Flavien Berger, Studio DOP: Léo Schrepel, VFX: David Rodes

Fight or Flight is an experimental, sensorial, emotional film designed to bring out a sensation of immersion, submersion, going over unusual and unconscious liquid memories shared by the man and the woman who, in turn, perform breast-stroke movements in the air. Going from suspension to immersion and back.

Inspired by the rigorous principles invented by Paul Beulque in Tourcoing in 1913, the swimmers are supported by a swing and plunged into the water where they repeat the swimming movements they previously learned out of the water. This support allows the swimmer to survive in their new environment, suggesting a to and fro between breathing and drowning. The film draws attention to the human inability to breathe underwater and his desire for emancipation by means of swimming and flight.

The emphasis is on division and duality - air/water - joy/sorrow - constraint/freedom - separation/reunion - light/heavy - calm/turbulent - conscious/unconscious - life/death and possible resurrection/transformation. With each immersion the body of one keeps the imprint of the other suggesting a new type of reunion.