Mia, a former trapeze artist from Florida finds herself at the head of a small circus with her husband in German-speaking Switzerland. Despite an exhausting nomadic lifestyle, Mia has faith in the circus tradition and patience while passing on this cultural heritage to her daughter Simone.
Diploma project (2018) by Juliette Menthonnex
Documentary / 32 min
Synopsis
Mia, a former trapeze artist from Florida finds herself at the head of a small circus with her husband in German-speaking Switzerland. Despite an exhausting nomadic lifestyle, Mia has faith in the circus tradition and patience while passing on this cultural heritage to her daughter Simone.
Comment
Anywhere is the story of a life on the road where destination matters little. With great delicacy, Juliette Menthonnex places her empathetic and benevolent gaze in the heart of the Stey family, one of those great circus families in which destinies seem sealed from birth. Here, it is all about learning and transmission, work and perseverance in order to transform sweat into diamonds, caravans into palaces.
Juliette accurately films this flight forward from the circus of our childhood: that of the glittery acrobats and the pom-poms, with the disappearance of a world in the background. There is a nostalgia of beauty in this backstage scene.
Raphaël Sohier / Sound editor
BA PHOTOGRAPHY
with Natacha Lesueur
Documenteur – The Power of the Fake Based on projects developed around a common theme, students create a personal and in-depth body of work exploring the notion of deception. They build a project that plays with the boundaries of photographic truth, using the medium as an artifice of lies.
BA GRAPHIC DESIGN
by Léa Corin
Neither Fully Free, Nor Fully Captive explores the theme of day parole. Through a video installation and a book, this project archives and documents the activities of an association dedicated to reintegration. The projection, conceived as an emotional archive, combines experimental videos with sound testimonies from individuals on day parole supported by the association, revealing the complexity of this transition. The book, as a complement, adopts a documentary and sensitive approach, blending stories and visual creations. This project transcends graphic form to foster social dialogue and shed light on an essential yet often overlooked issue.
BA PHOTOGRAPHY
with Rineke Dijkstra
What is good portrait? What technique do you choose? What kind of light do you use? Daylight or flash? What location or backdrop do you choose for? How do you choose your subject? How do you approach someone you don’t know? In this workshop, the students have explored what makes a good portrait and which tools you can use to create one.
BA GRAPHIC DESIGN
by Lidia Molina González
It all started with taking a break. A pause. A moment alone in a shared space: quiet, ordinary, a little strange. Toilets might not be the first place you’d look for big ideas, but that’s why we chose them. Toilet Break uses this overlooked space to explore how we live together, take space, and connect. This first issue is about in-betweens: between public and private, inside and outside. It gathers voices from Switzerland, Belgium, Japan, across generations and practices. A place where ideas circulate freely, where serious things can be said with a wink. A collective and personal space to test new editorial forms, listen more carefully, and believe in detours as a way forward. To take, quite literally, a moment to reflect and sit with things.
BA PHOTOGRAPHY
with Natacha Lesueur
“What is clearly conceived can be clearly expressed, and the words to say it come easily.” Nicholas Boileau, *L’art poétique*. As students embark on their final year of study at ECAL, with their interests and methods taking shape, this final project offers an opportunity to challenge their own rules, established practices and influences, to refuse to settle for the status quo and to take risks.