FR / EN
Toujours pas New-York (Still not New-York)2024, video, HD 16:9, color,
24’05
Preparing for a fictional departure to New York, the heroine retraces her fascination with a city she has never visited. Moving through her memories in search of the origin of this dream, she rediscovers and tells us the relationships that fueled her desire to leave. These friendships share a common trait: intense, fusion-like bonds, shaped as much by fantasy as by pop-cultural products for which they were precisely the commercial target. A short film at the crossroads of documentary and (auto-)fiction, Toujours pas New York tells the story of strictly female, exclusive friendships and examines how certain forms of pop culture can distort our bonds.
Céleste Moneger invites us to dive back into this stereotyped imaginary of female friendship, as conceived and circulated by teen movies and American series. The images are accompanied by a voice, a letter addressed to lost friends. The film exposes the perverse workings of certain narrative patterns in the representation of friendship for a generation of “Gossip Girl test subjects on drip.”
Text written by Andréanne Beguin.
A work commissioned by Andréanne Beguin, showned at Mécènes Du Sud, site de Montpellier, for the exibition AMIEX.
3D artist:
Arthur Grignard
Original song:
Written by Céleste Moneger
Composed by Lorenzo Luego
Performed by Taryn Everdeen
English subtitles:
Jye Wordsworth
With the support of Mécènes du Sud, Montpellier-Sète-Béziers
Exibition view: AMIEX, Mécènes du Sud, Montpellier, 2024
Photo: Elise Ortiou Campion
Photo: Elise Ortiou Campion