Better known as a visual artist who is very involved in contemporary photography (all of his work and archives entered the collections of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in May 2023), Jean-Claude Bélégou's relationship with the moving image dates back to his early youth. In 1970/72, he participated in the working group of the Cinema Unit of the Maison de la Culture du Havre led by Vincent Pinel and Christian Zarifian, where he made a short 16 mm film and an alternative photo-novel. In 1990, the group Noir Limite collaborated with Pierre Bongiovanni at the International Center for Video Creation around the creation Corps à corps. In 2015 he created his "little stories of cinema". Directed his first digital films in 2017.
It is therefore in no way a traditional narrative cinema (in the sense of a plot that is tied and untied) but what is commonly called an artist's video or experimental film.
Cinema rather than video, if there were references to look for, they would be on the side of Chris Marker's La Jetée, the first Alain Resnais (Last Year at Marienbad, Hiroshima mon amour), Dziga Vertov, the post-68 Godards, the first Chantal Akerman (News from home for example) but also Rohmer. Or Robert Bresson.
My first digital films obeyed this concept, notably in the Three Considerations on the Contemporary Landscape consisting of long sequence shots through industrial roads and highways or, conversely, in the countryside and The Fence shot here in long pans from room to room.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
For Watch the movie Temps amers (2024) original version with english Feature film 75 minutes sound. Third feature film, with La Muse and Apolline, whose voice-over soundtrack takes up texts by the artist from the 1980s to 2000s. This time the film intertwines landscapes and self-portraits.
For Watch the movie Apolline (2024)
Original version with english subtitles.Feature film duration 1 hour 26 mins.
Apolline's lover, as he nicknamed her, would have gone on a long journey to get lost in the north of the north. Like the needle of the compass, it was always from the north that he was attracted.
He leaves the months from winter to winter, going through the ordeal of loneliness, cold, destitution.
How does he find the strength to leave her? They are so complicit, so inseparable.
Before leaving, they celebrated Apolline's thirtieth birthday together at his house.
It is the next day that he leaves her and she finds herself alone in this large building that he has entrusted to her. She takes care of the day-to-day
Asleep or awake, she also dreams a lot,
To comfort herself, she often remembers and revisits the moments they spent together. She never stops remembering.
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Watch the movie Un été oisif (2017) original version with englishFeature film 1h03 extracts 30 minutes.
"My main occupation was to look at the sunlight and its comings and goings on the floors, especially on the floor of the library whose warm shade of wood seemed to echo the torpor of the midday rays.
As for her, I could remain for hours on end without distracting myself from it, thinking of that Thought in which Pascal writes that all the misfortune of men comes from the fact that they do not know how to remain at rest in a room. "
For Watch the movie Solstice (2025) Feature film 57 minutes sound.
Original version with senglish ubtitles
If there's anything to be said about Solstice, it's that you have to look at this film as a collection of memories shot by an amateur (and presumably lover) of the last summer spent with his partner (unless it was a pure staging with an actress?) before everything fell into the void.
Like a collection of images saved from the water or the fire, a batch of reels from before the digital age, accompanied by a box of various relics of little interest, bought, with the projector, for two francs six sous in a garage sale or a village fair. All of this fits in a suitcase.
For Watch the movie, La Muse (2023)o riginal version with senglish ubtitles
Feature film duration 1h03.
Shot at the end of summer 2023, The Muse is a film in long sequence shots.
The character embodies the archetype of the artist's model. A cinematographic portrait punctuated by posing sessions, the film leaves a wide margin for improvisation at the time of shooting. A text in the form of an artist's work diary, is above all a snapshot, a testimony on what the creative process is, it is read in voice-over by the actress. A direct sound is mixed in at times.