Being Jérôme Bel

From 2015 to 2019, the two co-directors shadowed Jerome Bel, recording all the phases of his work, from rehearsals to performances via discussions with his collaborators. Except that making a film about the choreographer, a major figure of contemporary dance since the mid-1990s, means bowing to some of his demands and dealing with his intuitions… or risk having some of the documentary work confiscated! Fascinating in its way of expanding on some of the issues raised by the choreographer’s shows – manipulation, the matter of who wrote the work and the author’s role and so on – “Being Jerome Bel” offers an uncompromising portrait. By exposing all Bel’s paradoxes, the film skilfully incorporates the artist’s demands and his awareness of his ambiguities.

Caroline Châtelet
Journalist and critic