WAVEWIDTH

Short Talk with Ethann Néon (director)

Belgium / 2023 / 4’53’’ 

BEST EXPERIMENTAL FILM Category

21st IN THE PALACE International Short Film Festival 2024

Synopsis: Wavewidth captures the sense of calm that a seaside landscape can provide. Lifted by waves of time, the spatio-temporal markers are blurred by the sound. The marine and sound waves resonate in a contemplative cinematographic experience.

Biography: Ethann Néon is a Belgian director. He makes experimental films around the notion of space-time. His practice focuses on the processes of visual reconstruction of time and the division of space within the framework of the screen. The aesthetics of his films is characterized by elaborated splitscreens that play with the frame and the off-camera.

Ethann Néon, director

In The Palace: Could you tell me more about the approach with the sounded images?

Ethann Néon (director): In fact, the sound was made last year and I really wanted to create the image out of the sound and have this feeling of contemplation that I wanted to implement in the film, because I love the composition made by Ben Bertrand. I wanted to translate the sound into the image and I did the film very intuitively.

In The Palace: What made you choose the sea landscape for the film?

Ethann Néon: I love to swim, but this is not really the reason. This sea landscape is special for me, because I have wandered several times there. The film was shot in an apartment in front of the sea, I think I did it naturally and not on purpose.

In The Palace: So you have a more intuitive approach when making movies?

Ethann Néon: For this one specifically yes, but that is not the case for every film I do. I certainly have a more conscious approach in making films. For Wavewidth it took me one week to shoot it and a couple of weeks to edit it.

In The Palace: Could you tell me more about the music in your artwork?

Ethann Néon: In a lot of my art projects the music is central and I am actually considering the sound to have the same strength as the images. I put them side by side when I am connecting a certain project.  For me the musical part is the narrator more than the actual narrator. It is a complex approach.

Author's view (Petar Penev):

An attemt to play with space and time through a symbiosis of image and sound is on display in ‘Wavewidth’, a simple yet intrigueing experimantal short.
 
What is a rather simple, maybe boring to most, beach scenary comes to life through the smart parallel between the physical and invisible waves around us. As the excitement of the sea seemingly builds up with the excitement of the changing landscpaes shows us the full narrative potential. A grand soundcape id just another tool to make the audience feel small in front of nature.
 
Watching this film may be a step towards looking at the world around in a more creative and appreciative way, which is always welcome, even increasingly necessary.