Cinema of exhibition? Autobiographical cinema? Never mind the definitions, a new kind of cinema is being invented by Clarisse Hahn, who mixes genres. (…) Her camera is like an extension of her body in the way she negotiates the world. But wether she is exploring her own family or evoking a protesting tribe across the ocean, it’s all a matter of fiddling the right distance.

Catherine Millet. Clarisse Hahn: People on the line. Art press, septembre 2012

Clarisse Hahn questions the codes associated with the “being-together”. Not only by filming communities the rites of which she examines in details, but by disrupting the contemplator/contemplated relation. (…) Clarisse Hahn has been studying the body in its intimate and social dimension. (…) She directly disrupts her shows, confronting violent scenes while establishing emotional relations with her protagonists. Although her body is rarely involved, she does not cease to “imperil her value system”. An involvement that allows a more immediate freeing of speech. With her way of approaching reality, she explores a new route: a route that nevertheless remains truly documentary, although it appears to be pushed to its outer limits, because it welcomes its transgressions. (…) Through her balancing act on the borderline by which she upsets our relation to the world, the protocols of contemporary art (the ambulatory habits) and the documentary devices (which she freely rearranges), she takes part in bringing about the necessary changes in the genres without ever confusing them.


The Protestants
2005
full lenght film
duration 90’
Shooting on Paris, Geneva, Noirmoutier (France).

A community stemming from the Protestant bourgeoisie organizes a lifestyle and passes on a feeling of membership from a generation to the other one. Rites of gathering continue, such as the rallyes, the scouting or another method of natural gymnastics. The characters speak values to which they adhere, from which they structure their existence. In front of the camera, theire postures are often stiff, even hieratic. Little by little, doubts show through, as do contradictions, giving a glimpse into the complexity of the relations each person has with his or her familial, religious and social environment.