FR / EN
Toujours pas New-York (Still not New-York)2024, video, HD 16:9, color,
24’05
A short film at the intersection of documentary and (auto-)fictional styles, Toujours pas New York (« Still not New-York ») narrates the story of strictly feminine and exclusive friendships, and observes how certain forms of pop culture can corrupt our relationships and manipulate our connections.
The heroine, preparing for a fictional departure to New York, retraces the history of her fascination for this city, which she has never visited. Navigating through her memories in search of the origin of this dream, she rediscovers and recounts the relationships that propelled her desire to go to New York. These relationships had this in common: they were exclusive, intense friendships, drawing their intensity from fantasies inspired by pop culture products, of which they were very precisely the commercial target. Céleste Moneger invites us to dive back into this stereotypical imagination of feminine friendship, as conceived and propagated by teen movies and American series. The images are accompanied by a voice: a letter addressed to lost friends. The film reveals the perversity of certain narrative patterns in the representation of friendship for a generation of ‘Gossip Girl-influenced guinea pigs.’
Text co-written by Andréanne Beguin and Céleste Moneger
A work commissioned by Andréanne Beguin, showned qt 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