Carte Blanche au Centre Pompidou

The Cinema Department of the Centre Pompidou has accepted the carte blanche offered by FIFA by creating three thematic programs featuring films from the Museum’s collections. The works are presented in three thematic programs (see below). Jonathan Pouthier is the associate Curator and Head of Film Collection Programming at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

Curator’s Note:
Unique in the institutional landscape of modern and contemporary art museums, both in France and internationally, the film collection of the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou in Paris, brings together more than 1,600 works spanning all periods — from early cinema to the most contemporary forms of artist films — across a wide range of formats (8 mm, Super‑8, 16 mm, Super-16, and 35 mm). Since the institution’s opening in 1977, this collection has outlined a non-linear and plural history of moving images and experimental practices within the arts of the 20^th and 21^st centuries.
A space for dialogue and the exchange of ideas, a collection must be seen as a palimpsest written by multiple hands at different times. It reflects technological evolutions and their obsolescence while resonating with the aesthetic and political debates that have shaped the history of art and society as a whole — not to mention those that persist and those yet to come. Exploring this territory means engaging with a multitude of gestures, narratives, and unique perspectives through which the issues of an era can be grasped. Programming a collection of this nature therefore involves institutional, heritage, and curatorial challenges that must always be kept in mind. It is crucial to define where we start from, why we do it, and to question how we go about it.
At FIFA’s invitation, this carte blanche offers an overview of the work carried out in recent years by the teams of the Musée National d’Art Moderne. Organized into three monographic or thematic sessions, the program highlights some of the most distinctive trends in modern and contemporary cinematic creation. From Sophie Calle’s road trip to Joëlle de la Casinière’s documentary essay, from Djouhra Abouda and Alain Bonnamy’s structural cinema to Andrew Kötting’s filmed performance, the question of representation — of oneself, the other, or the elsewhere — runs as a common thread throughout these three sessions, primarily built around recent acquisitions. These works offer an exploration of experimental cinematic creation while showcasing the richness and diversity of these artistic approaches. They also underline the crucial challenges a collection faces in the present moment.
- Jonathan Pouthier

Program 1 — Ailleurs est ici
Joëlle de la Casinière — La première partie du roi Henri IV de double W. Shakespeare : une analogie (1972, Colombia, 36′)
Caroline de Bendern — À l’intention de Mademoiselle Issoufou à Bilma (1971, United Kingdom, 41′)
Djourha Abouda & Alain Bonnamy —  Algérie Couleurs (1972, France/​Algeria, 15′)

Program 2 — 1 an, 60 heures, 90 minutes
Sophie Calle — No Sex Last Night (1995, France, 76′)

Program 3 — Voyage en Entropie
Ebrahim Golestan — Les Collines de Marlik (1963, Iran,15′)
Marguerite Duras — Les mains négatives (1979, France, 14’)
Emilija Škarnulyte — The Footstones in Night Writing (2015, Lithuania, 4′)
Olaf Nicolaï — Rodakis (2008, Germany,11′)
Bassim Magdy -The Everyday Ritual of Solitude Hatching Monkeys (2014, Egypt/Switzerland,13′)
Alexandre Ugay -Tea Ceremony (2001, Kazakhstan, 2′)
Andrew Kötting - Klipperty Kloop (1984, United Kingdom, 12′)