VIVIANE VAGH
Writer-Director
 
French-Australian

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EDUCATION:
Short period at the Beaux Arts de Paris and at the La Casa de Velasquez  (Madrid)
THEATER STUDIES :  I.F.C.A. UNIVERSITE AIX-EN-PROVENCE
DEGREE IN ENGLISH :   La Sorbonne Paris III with a  minor in cinema
MASTERS IN ENGLISH: La Sorbonne Paris III (Comparitive Literature)

PRACTICAL THEATER TRAINING :
ECOLE de CHAILLOT (Antoine Vittez)
ECOLE THEATRE du MIROIR (Daniel Mesguich)
RADA and ACTOR'S CENTER (London)
THE REAL STAGE (John Strasberg)
CAMERA Studies for  T.V. and CINEMA (Paris)

FILMS

 Short film and videos documentaries

 "Réponds-moi SVP" (1997) fiction, comedy, 5'50  color, sound, screening format, 35 mm .
  A look at love and marriage by a group of women of all ages.
 
- A series of  1 hour interviews of women, some well know, others less, after the age of 60 talking about their passion and activity for art, writing, politics...  (mini dv)
 
- A series of interviews of women in Palestine and Israel where I went during the 2nd Intifada to interview women of all ages about their thoughts on the war between their two countries
and the result of this in their lives and on their children. (mini dv)

Experimental
 
Some 8 mm footage from the 70's, family films and travels.

For the last 20 years: A number of  spontaneous Super 8 films around, either inner or outer journeys:  Seasons, countries ( Greece, Egypt, China, Switzerland, France, Australia) , moods, atmospheres
(from my window, my place, my street, streets of Paris, Parks, children, markets) Building and destruction sites... I leave these images as they were filmed or use the footage over and over again
as an obsessive leitmotiv of images in my edited films  ...
 
Free Women  (2009) 9'
color and  B&W, sound,shot in 8mm, Super 8, 16mm, and video, edited digitally. Screening format: mini-dv.
I want this film to be organic,  feminine in the sense of its movement and its sensuality, rooted into all which nature offers the female body to find form and rhythm.
The title of my film is a play on words to imply both states of being: free women and women yet to be freed from age long discrimination. 
I have made this film as a portrait of my deepest emotions around this issue which has been a core subject in all my creative endeavours.
 
 Now you see me, now you don't  (2007)  7'30 sound,| shot in  16 mm color, edited digitally. Projection format mini-dv.
A race against time to "capture" and  keep the trace of a face on the filmstrip of a young woman running to catch up with the sun as it's sinking.

Carnet de Voyage - Le Caire /Cairo (2006)  11mn sound, super 8 color, edited digitally. Screening format: mini - dv
A journey back to a childhood place. An observation on the evolution of the  city of Cairo, and the impact it has had on its population, on the women there and on myself. 
Notes taken by images, these are mingled with dreams and obsessively repeating sentences.

Ground Zero NY 2005  (2007-2008) 11mn sound. color and B&W. Screening format: mini-dv (eventually 16mm)
Shot in Super 8 B&W as though I were witnessing another epoch, a world of ghosts, the traces superimpose and double on the filmstrip, the inhabitants of NY ( shot in 9 images p/s)
seem to be running towards the hope of a new world. 
 
Soulsearching (2007) 6mn sound, super 8, color B&W edited digitally. Screening format: mini –dv.
Find one's soul through memory and leave its trace on the filmstrip.

The World of Weimu Li (2006) 2mn40 sound, digital, original support: Super 8 and silver black and white photos. Screening format mini DV
My Chinese friend Weimu Li and myself found it necessary to create a new language to express our encounter through our art work. She and her black and white photographs,
me and my films in Back and White super 8 film. So I decided to film this poetic meeting in digital mixing our images on an original musical back ground in onomatopoeia's by Jonathan Levine.

Fidèles au R.D.V.(2006) An experimental film especially created with the archives of amateur films of the Fête de l'Humanité since its beginning, for the event "Toiles d'Humanité"
at the Fête de l'Humanité Paris suburbs. 
 
 Shadows and Light (s) (2006) 5mn30 sound, super 8 and dv footage, B&W and color.Screening format mini-dv ( eventually 16mm ) 
Like a Dervish dance, a meditation through images of a child and of repetitive obsessional images of  movements, like passionate brush strokes, playing with the mystery of light and shade on faces,
forms and bodies so as to speak about matter and the invisible appearing on the filmstrip.

Australia- my family Christmas (2005-2006)  13mn sound, super 8 color. Screening format super 8.  Can also be projected on multiple screens - looped in mini dv format.
A  portrait of an ordinary family Christmas in Australia.

Super 8 experience- Paris-Beaubourg  (2005) 5'30 Super 8, sound. Screening format: mini-dv  Up and down the escalators in Beaubourg,
filming from the inside Paris on the outside in super 8, a day of all seasons!
 
Tip Toe around town. (2006) 7' 15 mini dv and Super 8, sound. Screening format 16 mm B&W
Rhythm of steps as metaphor of life cycles in the Parc Monsouris in the 14th district of Paris, a place where I love to walk and meditate with the seasons.

 SERIES "PETITE" 2000-2006: ( 9 short films), filming format super 8. sound. Screening format: mini -dv
The series "Petite"  like the pages of a diary exposing the strong themes of life. Petite leads us by the hand. Now we see her as a child, now a teenager, now a mature woman, now an elderly women.
A lineage of women. The films can be shown simultaneously in an installation on several screens (TV or cinema of any or several formats) or they can be screened separately in a theater.
 

INSTALLATIONS

BEACHCOMBERS a 3 episode installation-performance ( direct video, dancer, singer actor/poetess, live musician) / installation ( vegetation and video projection of 3 videos of Australian nature )
Created and conceived as a landscape and video installation for Glass Cube 37 Gallery Vic, Australia, 2005 / 2006, then for la Nuit Blanche Paris, 2007 and  Fête de la Lumière Chartres, 2007 France
and the final episode for Athens Video Arts Festival 2009, Greece.
The central theme in this work is the "archetypal feminine"  incarnated by the aesthetics of the piece and the performers ( actors, dancers, musicians, direct filming ).
A global work that I call, "Theatre of Ensembles".
 
 AURORE
A performance/installation for the Printemps des Poetes Paris France.
While I screen Aurore my 16 mm film, Aurore, ( the actress in the film) recites Racine in front of the screen wearing the same clothes as she does in the film.

La Lantern Magique
Installation / performance for the Nuit Blanche Paris at the B.A.N.K. gallery 2005,
Super 8 films projected directly on an installation of a created lantern and chair ( reminiscent of the 20's) and a performer who incarnates a silent movie icon.

MELANCHOLIE D'UN JOUR
Monograph exhibition,  performance /installation (projected Super 8 films, installation of Super 8 cameras and projectors, exhibition of stills of the projected films printed on canvas1meter x 1meter)
and one video projector at the Bièvre Gallery,  Paris 2005
  

  Writer-Film and Theater Director for over 20 years
 
Theater Actress with, amongst others,  Daniel Mesguich,
Antoine Vittez, la Salamandre (Bourdet-Milianti) etc.
Performed at the Festival d’ Avignon, various National Theaters
(Opéra de Paris, TGP, Athénée, Cours d’Honneur Avignon),
Théâtre National de Lille, Théâtre National de Tours,
 La Crie- Marseille. Théâtre de la Cité Univérsitaire Paris,
Théâtre de la Bastille…
 
Lyricist for Musical Comedies and various CDs.
 Site internet: http://www.bonnenouvellelouisiane.com

Member of the EAT (Contemporary Theater Writers Association)
Member of the ETNA  (Experimental Film Lab Group)
Member of the SACD (French Writer's Guild)
Member of the SACEM (French  Composer's Society)

Teacher of drama and video in France and foreign countries, notably
the Georges Pompidou Center and the Alain de Bock Theater Studio in Paris.

President of  Women in Film and TV France 1997

 Invited by Line Renaud as one of the fifty women coming from the arts in France, to appear in the  book,
"Regards de Femmes"  for the support of the AIDS Association, France.