Places and Stories

Watching and making: a specific question of cinema which allows the discovery of the different parameters of cinema on every encounter (mise-en-scène, sound, light, acting, editing…), and resources to be explored in an educational context (film clips, film analysis, texts, practical exercises, workshops films). Places and stories under examination: the intimate connection between the characters’ stories and the real places where they take place in cinema, and linked in a more imaginary, symbolic way or to the past of those places.

Presentation of challenges

Michaël Dacheux is a filmmaker and speaker in cinema education workshops. On the basis of film extracts, he analyzes how filmmakers film places where their stories and those of their characters take place: importance of the arrival in a place, transgression, refuges and hiding places, imaginary places...

A question / a sequence

Michaël Dacheux analyses a sequence from Beauty and the Beast: the way Jean Cocteau filmed Beauty’s journey to Beast’s castle, the discovery of a magic place by the character, which generates curiosity and fear.

Film Extracts

Discovering a place

A place is defined in space by specific borders, whether real or symbolic, which a character or characters cross with emotion, enthusiasm, or even fear and apprehension – various signs and symbols manifest themselves on screen indicating that we are entering into a dangerous or hostile environment.

Places which contain memories of the past

Intimate memories - some secret, symbolic traces or signs linked to a shared public history, the places selected for filming carry with them the unmistakable presence of a life lived, memories - a past at times shared with both the characters and the audience themselves.

The alternative place

At the heart of public spaces, there are specific places, whether invented or appropriated, where the characters form a community, and establish their own proper rituals.