As part of the Year of the Documentary 2023, the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs, Longueur d'ondes, ADDOR and INA have launched a pilot project to promote the broadcasting of sound documentaries within the French cultural network abroad.
The aim of the project is to introduce listeners to the beginnings of sound documentaries, and to encourage them to listen to and discover sound creation.
Made by Irène Omélianenko, documentary audio-maker and former adviser to France Culture's documentary programmes (French public radio), this “Journey” offers an audio journey through documentary as it developed in France from the beginnings of radio broadcasting to the end of the 20th century. Thirty extracts come together to sketch out a soundscape from 1941 to 1996 through a multitude of windows on the world and on time.
An immense number of sounds produced from Paris to Mauritania, via Brittany, the Orinoco and Mont Aigoual, embody the very essence of radio and its ability to transport the listener with an ease and technical lightness incomparable to other media. This creation by Irène Omélianenko tells the story of flagship programmes such as Magie et vérité des sons, Chasseurs de son, and Nuits magnétiques, the stations that carried them, and the figures who initiated and distilled documentary creation over the airwaves.
It will be possible to meet, among others :Paul Castan, Paul Claudel, Josette Colin, Gustave Eiffel, Lise Elina, Guy Erismann, René Farabet, René Jentet, Olivier Kaeppelin, Jean-Pierre Milovanoff, Kaye Mortley, Yann Paranthoën, José Pivin, Pierre Schaeffer, Marion Thiba.
This range of documentaries from the INA's collections is designed to show the many ways (and voices) of this art form. It's an art of encounter, of astonishment, of contemplation, of intimacy, of analysis and sensitivity, which embraces reality in all its forms.
This work does not claim to be a complete overview of sound creation, no more than it would be possible to take stock of literary creation. But through its sensitivity, its emotion, its richness of sound and its diversity, it hopes to inspire listeners to go and listen to these artists, identified in a booklet listing the names of all the works mentioned, and to discover new ones.
