Welcome to the world of Mère Folle!
A film by Mieke Bal & Michelle Williams Gamaker
(Cinema Suitcase)
Based on the 1998 novel of the same name by French psychoanalyst Françoise Davoine.
Genre: Psychological Drama | 120mins | Colour | Multi-lingual with English subtitles
If your mentally ill patient dies, are you to blame? For Dr Françoise Davoine, Parisian psychoanalyst, this question becomes disturbingly real as one of her patients, Ariste, dies. Davoine is abducted and put on trial by mediaeval fools and through the course of one hellish night - across several centuries and countries – must argue her case for exoneration.
As the journey forces Dr Davoine to question her own life, via a mix of fiction, documentary and theory, Mère Folle takes the viewer on a one-of-a-kind journey into the minds of the 'mad' and those designated to cure them.
Click on the links above to find out more, including production stills, crew information and the theoretical discourse presented by the film.
We would love to hear from you: merefolle@gmail.com
Credit music with trailer: The music, played on original historical instruments, is from "Estampie et Ungaresca" (An. 13e et 16e s.) - Les musiciens de Provence, CD Arion "Les musiciens de Provence vol. 1 - Musique des Trouvères et des Troubadours" - ARN 48064 (p) Arion 1974, avec l'aimable autorisation de Arion Music, Paris/Courtesy of Arion Music, Paris - www.arion-music.com
Latest update, 29.07.2010
The first public projection of the film is behind us. It was a lovely, although very hot evening at the Maison Descartes, near the garden which is the set of a huge scene. We got very useful comments, and used those to finalize the film. It is now 2h 10 minutes, after lots of small and regretted sacrifices. The pace is better and the story clearer. Just as the colour correction has made an enormous difference, now the sound is in the hands of a brilliant sound corrector, and we cannot wait to see/hear the results. This will be in September. After a final check, the film will have its World Première in Haarlem, in the Festival Madness & Arts, on Sunday afternoon September 26th at 4 p.m. Lots of participants have promised to come, including the brilliant actress Marja Skaffari whose presence as Sissi is a major draw of the film; Marjo Vuorela, Sissi's new analyst, hopefully Thomas Germaine with his multi-appearances as Antonin, Artaud and Herlat; and many others, and of course, Françoise. We hope many of you will be able to come. You can make reservations for the première after August 16th at an address we will post by then. Participants in the project who wish to come can let Mieke know, so that we can put you on a guest list.
More news: Juho Heinola has made a brilliant poster we will use for publicity and for the DVD box. It conveys the multiplicity that characterizes the film, while preserving the enigmatic character of the title figure, Mère Folle. It is unlike any poster we have seen, and we expect it to have a great impact.
Elan Gamaker, creator of the first trailer, made a second one to replace it and thus refresh the film's image. As much as we all loved the first one, this trailer conveys more strongly the high stakes of the film; its newly-invented genre as a "theoretical fiction" and does more justice to the personal connections between Françoise's life story and her chosen profession. Check it out on the home page; it should be on line soon.
Warmest wishes,
Mieke & Michelle