© Thomas Cartron/Hoang-Son Doan

sidney leoniunder influence

UNDER INFLUENCE is a fiction feature film portraying the mysterious and psychotic journey of the actress Julia Gordon, who frenetically turns her imagination into a living world away from the humdrum existence of her contemporaries. Frustrated by the character that she is playing in a new motion picture titled Being Kate Winslet, Julia Gordon finds comfort under the influence of charismatic classic film characters – which she repetitively turns into.

UNDER INFLUENCE is shaped like a maze of real and naturalistic events, of series of cuts, of shifts and collisions between the real world and fictional ones, of complete imaginary and fantastic situations, of visualization of thoughts, of mental associations, of wishes and fantasies that swirl through the mind of an actress who conveys her dreams to us. The plot being the point of entry into a kaleidoscopic experience of identity and of cinema in the way of a visual, auditory and physical journey.

© Thomas Cartron

screenings

01 > 03.10.2015 Dansens Hus, Stockholm - Screening test 17.03.2016 Inkonst, Malmö25 > 26.03.2016 Beursschouwburg, Brussels - Première 28.04.2016 Centre Culturel Jacques Franck, Brussels 2016 (tbc) Buda Arts Center, Kortrijk

credits

Written, directed & produced by: Sidney LeoniStarring: Halla Ólafsdóttir, Christine de Smedt, Steven Wendt, Mariana My Suikkanen Gomes, Alexandra Cismondi, Elias Girod, Sidney Leoni, Zoë Poluch, Manon SantkinCinematography: Hoang-Son DoanMusic by: Jonathan Uliel SaldanhaCostume design: Marie DavinFilm editing: Denis LeborgneSound editing & sound mixing: Raphaël HénardHand shadow puppetry: Steven WendtColor grading: Paul Millot, Cobalt FilmsExecutive production: HirosProduction designers: Ruben Desiere, Estelle Gautier, Luis Miguel Félix, Adrien Monfleur, Kevin TrappeniersFirst assistant camera: Alexandre Cabanne2nd first assistants camera: Charlotte Marchal, Ada DetrazGrip: Brendan Senden, Pierre SchoensteinSound 1st assistant: Lucas LebartSound 2nd assistant: Alban CayrolScript supervisor: Estelle GautierSet decorator, paper artworks: Sidney LeoniAdditional Couture clothing: Jadis Collection by Loic BarbarrouxCostumers: Sidney Leoni, Marine VanhaesendonckHair & Make up: The cast, Marie Davin, Sidney LeoniPainter: René LeoniFilm set photographer: Thomas CartronAdditional cast: Estelle Gautier, Emma Kim Hagdahl, Michael Helland, Miles Madison, Ula SickleExtras: Helga Baert, Amandine Bigot, Billy Bultheel, Alexandre Cabanne, Thomas Cartron, Jenthe Coenen, Ludwig Dieleman, Fanny Evers, François Geslin, Marie Gob, Julie Gouju, Arya Honarmand, Surya Ibrahim, Louise Lanckmans, Alice Lapalu, Johan Leclercq, Bart De Leeuw, Martin Lervik, Carlos Lopez, Tamara Maes, Enad Marouf, Mara Mathyssens, Aïda Merghoub, Paul De Mont, Alex Pauwels, Matthieu Peyrand, Rudy Rillaerts, Anika Ruisch, Coline & Laurent Toulouse, Matthieu Triolet, Evelien Van De Velde.Technical director for live screening: Akim TrochCamera, lenses & equipment: BFC Rental, Eye Lite, Key Grip SystemsSound equipment: AD HOC Sound ServicesFinal Sound Mix at: DojoMix StudioCatering: A CHACUN SA MADELEINEAdministrative support: Interim Kultur (Stockholm)Supported by: Montévideo contemporary art center (Marseille), Centre Culturel Jacques Franck (Brussels), Stockholm University of the Arts, PACT Zollverein (Essen)Co-productions for live screenings: Beursschouwburg (Brussels), Dansens Hus (Stockholm), Kunstencentrum Buda (Kortrijk)With the financial support of: the Flemish Community, City of Stockholm, the Swedish Arts CouncilSpecial thanks to: Abbaye de Villers, Brasserie Du Gourmet, City of Brussels, Commune de Forest, Foodmaker, Gare de Genval, Gîte Du Chenêlet, KVS, Narafi, Luca School of Arts, OR, Potemkine bar, Scouts en Gidsen Sint-Hubertus LDK, Sipwell, Taxis Verts, Vedett.Duration: 74 min.

© Thomas Cartron

Biographiessidney leoni

° 1984, lives and works in Brussels & Stockholm

Sidney works as a choreographer, performer and film-maker. His artistic research explores the field of immersive and experiential theatre, within which he focuses on the processes and effects of audience’s imaginary and sensory perceptions. Moreover, he has been committed to investigating the relations between fiction and reality, the material and the immaterial, the agency of materials and the agency of bodies. In his latest choreographic works – Undertone (2010) and Hertz (2013) – the theatre space was plunged partially or totally into darkness, and a range of sensory variations – such as surround-soundscapes, live music, smells, vibrations, airflows and temperature fluctuations – were generated in correlation to performative situations of encounter and mutual dependence between a group of performers and the audience. With War of Fictions (2011), a piece created with choreographer/performer Luís Miguel Félix, his interest turned to defining strategies to engage moving bodies as a main agent in producing fiction.Sidney wrote and directed Under Influence, a feature film for cinemas and theatres. The project is based on an original screenplay about a movie actress who brings into her real life the film characters she plays. A first projection of Under Influence took place in October 2015 in Dansens Hus (Stockholm).As a performer, Sidney has taken part in works by Mette Ingvartsen: Giant City (2009) and The Artificial Nature Project (2012), Andros Zins-Browne: The Host (2010) and Welcome to the Jungle (2012), and Stina Nyberg: Splendour (2015).Since 2008 Sidney has been a member of mychoreography, an independent Stockholm-based organization.In 2008-2009, Sidney took part in the master’s programme Research in Choreography at DOCH in Stockholm and in 2002- 2006 he followed the bachelor’s and master’s programme Research in Dance at the Sophia Antipolis University in Nice. Before that, Sidney trained as a ballet dancer at the Toulon Opera in France.

Halla Ólafsdóttir / Lead actress - performer – choreographerHalla Ólafsdóttir is an Icelandic artist, dancer, actress and choreographer living and working in Stockholm. She works in different constellations and collaborations that have an interest in expanding the notion of dance and choreography. Her stage work is concerned with methods of reinterpretation of recognizable formats of representation, facilitating a shared experience.Halla is a MA choreography graduate from DOCH (Stockholm) and for the past four years she has been part of mychoreography and INPEX, creating and performing a number of pieces and projects which have toured to festivals in Sweden, England, Belgium, France, Germany, Vienna and the United States. She has recently been touring the piece Giselle, which involves the partake of over a hundred artists the past two years. As well as the piece Beauty and the Beast, which won the Prix Jard’in D’Europe Awards at ImpulsTanz in 2013. She took part in creating and acting in the film Resolving up side down that was filmed at the Centre Pompidou in 2009, as well as acting in several short films, art projects and commercials both in Iceland and Sweden.Her work takes on various forms and expressions, as she also co-curated the Reykjavík Dance Festival: A Series of Event 2012 where 30 artists were invited to partake in a 10 days festival in Iceland. For the past two years she has been working in a collective project with the band the Knife, co-creating and performing the show Shaking the Habitual, touring it in Europe and North- America.

Christine de Smedt / Actress - performer Christine lives in Brussels. Her artistic work is situated in between dancing/performing, choreographing, coordinating, organizing and curating artistic projects. Being a member of the company Les Ballets C. de la B. (Gent, Belgium) since 1991, she produced a solo, La force fait l’union fait la force (1993), a traveling project in the Balkan, Escape Velocity (1998) and a large scale project 9x9, on mass and choreography (2000-2005). She collaborated for several years with Meg Stuart-Damaged Goods (1995- 1999). Over the last years she was involved in various artistic collaborations with Mette Edvardsen, Marten Spangberg, Xavier Le Roy, Philipp Gehmacher, Vladimir Miller, Jan Ritsema amongst others. Between 2005 and 2011 she co- created with Eszter Salamon nvsbl, dance#1/driftworks, Transformers and Dance#2. Currently she tours untitled 4/4 choreographic portraits, a solo- project presenting four performative portraits of different artists/choreographers.

Mariana Suikkanen Gomes / actress - performerMariana Suikkanen Gomes is an actress and performance maker based in Stockholm. She obtained her BA (Hons)in LIVE ARTS from Kingston University, United Kingdom, in 2007 and followed this on with the master programme The Autonomous Actor at Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts 2010/2011. This was a one off master year focused on the performer as emancipated artist, curated by Danjel Andersson (MDT Sthlm) with Frank Vercruyssen of TG STAN as guest professor and tutors such as Jacob Wren (PME), Eva Meyer-Keller, Jørgen Knudsen (Baktruppen), Tiago Rodrigues (Mundo Perfeito).Solo works include Show me yours and I’ll show you mine and Xenglossi I and Mariana is part of the performance collective GLQ/GomesLechQuigley who are currently collaborating on HAPPILYFOREVERAFTER.Other work as a performer, and collaborations with other artists include Lundahl&Seitl’s Proscenium (Royal Dramatic Theatre, Stockholm) Geist’s Titanic or The art of failure (Stockholm City Theatre), Das Große Nature Theater of Oklahoma Reuft Euch! (Nature Theater of Oklahoma’s residency at HAU Berlin) and Sidney Leoni’s UNDERTONE (Stockholm, Oslo, Trondheim, Brussels and Frankfurt).

Steven Wendt / Actor, music composer-musician, shadowgraphSteven lives in Los Angeles, California. He works as an actor, performer, music composer-musician, hand shadow artist and puppeteer. In 2009 he incorporated the prestigious California Institute of the Arts where he pursued a bachelor degree of Fine Arts in Acting. Since 2012, he plays as a blue man in the acclaimed show« Blue Man Group » at the Universal Studios Orlando. Since 2008, Steven plays in various films: ‘If Not Now, When?’, ‘Zombie Love’, ..., in theater performances: ‘Phil Soltanoff & Jim Findlay Project’ by The Center Theater Group (2010-2011), ‘Ground to Cloud’ (2010) by RedCat (Disney Hall), ... As a pupetter, he played in « The Accidental Insight (2009) dir. by Dominik Krzanowski , ‘Peter’s Shadow’(2009) dir. by Christine Marie and ‘Pirates and Ninja’s’ (2008) dir. by Lissa Sherman.

Manon Santkin / performer – dancerManon graduated in 2004 at P.A.R.T.S and is currently completing a Master program in New Performance Practices at the Stockholm University of Arts. She developed the past years a versatile artistic practice focusing on the creation of projects as an initiator, collaborator, writer, mentor and advisor. She has been working in close collaboration with choreographer Mette Ingvartsen since 2003 and with Salva Sanchis since 2005. She’s also taking part in the work of Xavier Leroy, Eleanor Bauer and Sidney Leoni. She initiated several projects alone (Unexplained Dances, performance 2014) or in collaboration with Leslie Mannès (By-product 2006-13, performance Kit 2012). Interested in the discursive aspects of performance, Manon often takes part in the process of other artists as a mentor or dramaturge (eg. Daniel Linehan, Stina Nyberg, Cecilia Lisa Eliceche, Mette Ingvartsen, etc), works as a writer and as teacher (P.A.R.T.S,

Elias Girod / Dancer – performerElias completed his bachelor in Dance at DOCH in Stockholm In 2014. after having received a training as a classical ballet dancer at the National Finish Ballet School. Elias currently lives and works in Stockholm.Since 2008 has been working as a dancer/performer for several companies in Sweden, Finland and Estonia. Since 2014 he is part of Weld Company under the artistic direction of Anna Koch.

Zoë Polluch / Dancer – performerZoë is a Canadian choreographer and dancer, graduated from the Master in Choreography of Stockholm. She has been involved with many different independent collective dance companies in Montreal, Toronto, Brussels and Stockholm. Since 2012 she has worked on various collaborations, among which the Practice Symposium and SO WHAT; the latter featuring Valentina Desideri. Zoë Poluch’s research is focused on questioning the forms and methods of livingand working together, discussing these three main terms: life, work and togetherness.

Son Doan / Director of PhotographySon is a director of photography based in Brussels. Son Doan studied direction of photography at INSAS and photography and art at ERG (both schools in Brussels.) He has been working as a DOP in numerous fiction films, fashion and music videos.He is specialized in 16/35 mm and HD, Highspeed for feature films, shortfilm and music video.

Jonathan Uliel Barbosa Saldanha / music composer-musicianJonathan is a composer and artist living in Porto, Portugal. Working in the interception of live-dubbing, electroacoustics, percussive sounds, mass choral singing and wind instruments within the acoustic, physical and mental proprieties of time. Deeply interested in non western music systems, he started to study Tabla in 1999 playing in the Hindustani music ensemble Jugalbandi. He is a founding member of the art and mu sic platform SOOPA, a visual and sound laboratory as well as cultural producer based in Porto.Saldanha operates sonically in the projects HHY & The Macumbas, Fujako, and Mécanosphère, among others. He develops sound-theatre pieces under the name Beast Box, presenting “Mundo de Cristal, Máquina da Selva” at Serralves Museum and at Accès(s) Festival. In 2012 he co-curated the program “SONORES - sound/space/signal” for Guimarães European Capital of Culture and composed the piece KHŌROS ANIMA for mixed choir and empty resonant space. In 2014 he was commissioned to compose a piece based upon the archetypes of a Via Crucis, the sound and gesture piece SANCTA VISCERA TUA was presented in two churches in Portugal.

Saldanha has performed his work in festivals like Primavera Sound, OUT.Fest, Circular, Amplifest, Milhões de Festa and Sónar. His music has been released under the labels SOOPA, Ångström Records, Wordsound, Rotorelief and Tzadik.

Denis Leborgne / Film-sound editorDenis works as an independent film editor for short and feature films, documentaries and music videos. He also works as an assistant editor, mainly for feature films. In 2011 he graduated from the Film editing & Script supervising section at IAD (Institut des Arts de Diffusion) in Louvain-la- Neuve.He edited his first feature film at the age of 21, « Celui qui pleure a perdu » by Marion Lefeuvre (2012) which was selected in various festivals (Philadelphia, N.Y.C, Washington D.C, Saint-Jean-de-Luz). More recently, he edited the experimental film « SHIFT », directed by Léa Rogliano (2014), co-edited « Vertiges » by Arnaud Dufeys (official selection at BSFF & BRFF 2014 in Brussels), and co-edited « Une histoire française », a documentary directed by Ben Izak.His work as a music video editor includes clips for Scarlett O’Hanna («Dramamine », 2014) and Wasis Diop («Children of peace », 2014). As an assistant editor, he worked on feature films such as « The Invader » by Nicolas Provost (2011, various selections in Torronto, Palm Springs, Venice, San Sebastian), « L’affaire Chebeya, un crime d’Etat? » by Thierry Michel (2012, selections in Paris, San Francisco, Montréal, Tunis), « Tokyo Anyway » by Camille Meynard (2012, official selection Namur and BE Film Festival Bruxelles 2013) « Suite Française » by Saul Dibb (2013, theatrical release planned for late 2014), « The Age of Death » by Benjamin Colaux & Christopher Yates (2014, theatrical release planned for 2015).

Raphaël Hénard / Sound designer – sound mixerRaphaël is a music composer, sound mixer for cinema, artistic films and sound installations. After Graduating from the Sound Department of the cinema school La Fémis in 2012, Raphaël join the production department at IRCAM. He is now involved in in the Art Center Le Fresnoy in Lilles and collaborates on many film projects et installations. It also conducts his artistic sound research on white noise, recording and using wind as a primary source. Coming from cinematographic practices, his dissertation studies questioned the possibility of receiving an emotional response from sound when the image is missing.Raphaël is also a member of the electronic music duo Plapla Pinky, signed on the Japanese label Sonore, and tours in many festivals around the world (Villette Sonique, Siestes électroniques du Quai Branly in Paris, Nuits Sonores in Lyon, Sonar festival in Barcelona, Dans Dakar in Stockholm, Todays Art in La Haye and Bruxelles, Club Metro in Kyoto ... ). He was also working as a lecturer for the course “Writing and describe space” in the School of Architecture Paris-Belleville.

contact

Helga Baert, helga @ hiros.be

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© Thomas Cartron

© Thomas Cartron