DAGUERRÉOTYPES (Daguerreotypes – People from my street) | 7 September

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Open Space – curated by Zauri Matikashvili

DAGUERRÉOTYPES is not a film about the picturesque Rue Daguerre in the 14th arrondissement; it is a film about a short stretch of Rue Daguerre between numbers 70 and 90. It is a modest and site-specific document about a few small business owners, an attentive look at the silent majority, a neighbourhood photo album; they are stereo-daguerreotype portraits, archives for archaeo-sociologists from the year 2975. It is my Daguerre opera. I had a power cable laid from the meter at my house; the cable was 90 metres long. I decided to shoot daguerreotypes within this radius. I would not go further than the cable reached.

I would find something to film right here, without going a single step further. I had no intention of making a political film. I didn’t go up to people and ask: ‘What about the tax office? What about taxes? What about the future? Don’t you feel the desire for change? And who do you actually vote for?” Instead, I was looking for a completely everyday approach. I wanted to capture their lifestyle, their gestures. Because in the retail trade, human relationships are conducted entirely through gestures; there was a lot that fascinated me.

It’s important for a documentary filmmaker to be able to take a back seat. Once you’ve made your intentions clear, once you’ve told people: ‘I’ll be there to capture it all, I’ll be there, but after that, forget about me.’ If they forget about us, then you’ve got talent. They are the main characters. Not me. You say to them: “We start where television ends. We’re with you. Please accept that we’re filming everything, not just what seems important to you.”

The work of a documentary filmmaker is not just about technical skills and film knowledge. It is about reaching out to others, listening, and, of course, having the gift of getting them to talk – but in a situation where they feel at ease. I filmed an elderly lady at the ‘Chardon Bleu’. She was a bit forgetful. Extraordinary. In an interview, I once said of her: ‘She’s a star. She’s Marilyn. She has an unforgettable face!’ People who’d seen the film sent me 50-franc notes to buy flowers for her. And that for a documentary! She simply became such a powerful presence for these people that they began to love her.

Agnès Varda, *Varda par Agnès*, Cahiers du Cinéma & Ciné-Tamaris, 1994 (translated by Petra Metelko)

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“Heartwarming and heartbreaking… A masterpiece” Roger Ebert