IN SITU
In Situ accompanies an artist for the production of a new work.
Isabelle Prim’s film Autobiographie d’un blaireau, a work in progress.
The Fondazione Claudia Cardinale has invited Isabelle Prim for a production residency to work on her new film project : Autobiographie d’un blaireau. The film is conceived as a philosophical comedy, a fiction narrative partly based on archive material, featuring the historical figure of Henri Breuil, the first prehistorian to visit the famous Lascaux cave after being discovered by children.
Abbé Breuil (1877–1961), a renowned priest and prehistorian who revealed the existence of decorated caves to the world, receives a mysterious call from the future. A group of astronauts, resting in a sanatorium before their mission, invite him to come and talk about his life as an explorer. This encounter rekindles his desire to write his memoirs—but, far from reviving the spirit of discovery, it gives rise to doubt and remorse. What if every conquest led only to ruin? What if every discovery implied a loss? This profoundly modern vertigo opens the galleries of a film that oscillates between comedy and drama, in which the abbot—the badger—is the hero. Distracted from the future, from Suzanne and the astronauts, the autobiographical animal buries himself in writing, in search of the past and childhood.
While exploring the region, Isabelle Prim found the local landscape to be the ideal setting for her film and decided to set her story between Le Picardeau, the regional museum of prehistory in Nemours, the local parishes, and the forest. The Fondazione is supporting her in the writing and production process together with production house Ecce Films (Paris). The project is developed thanks to the support of our local partners, the regional museum of prehistory, Dune Productions, and Smac Productions, as well as the local association and people who are getting involved in this adventure.
Isabelle Prim is a filmmaker, film editor, actress and cinema teacher based in Paris. She graduated from Le Fresnoy, Studio national (Tourcoing) ; studied in the department of the Experimental Media of the Universität der Künste Berlin ; graduated from the National Fine Art Schools of Lyon and Grenoble where she also studied at the Conservatory of Dramatic Arts.
Combining experimentation and storytelling, her films are often rooted in historical facts, archival material or literature — La Rouge et la Noire (2011), Déjeuner chez Gertrude Stein (2013), Le Souffleur de l’affaire (2014), Mens (2019), Les Loups (2024) and others—have been screened at numerous international festivals and art centers. She is the first French doctoral student in arts studies and practice, under the supervision of UQAM (Université du Québec à Montréal) and Le Fresnoy, with a thesis co-directed by Georges Didi-Huberman. As an editor and actress, she has worked with Caroline Champetier, Luc Moullet, Jean-Claude Brisseau, Leos Carax, Dorothée Smith, and others. Isabelle Prim teaches video and cinema at ESAM, the Fine Art & Media school of Caen/Cherbourg. Together with the students she created Si Cinéma, international film festival in art schools. Her films are regularly produced by Ecce films, Paris.
