NE CHANGE RIEN

The actress Jeanne Balibar sings. Pedro Costa’s “Ne change rien” (Portugal/France 2009) shows her at work: rehearsing with her band, in the recording studio, taking singing lessons, on stage. A piece is attempted again and again, a bar corrected, a phrasing discarded – music not as a result but as a process, a collaboration and an effort. Balibar, dissatisfied with the roles she was offered as an actress, had turned to singing; Costa, a friend of hers, accompanied her over several years. What began as a short film in 2005 grew into a feature.

In black and white and in long, almost static shots in which the light cuts the figures out of the darkness, Costa stays true to his form – while also invoking Godard’s “One Plus One”, the film that showed the Rolling Stones at work on a single song. “Ne change rien” screened in the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs in Cannes in 2009. It was shown at Around the World in 14 Films in Berlin in 2010, in the Spezial Jeanne Balibar section.

Shown at the 2010 edition of Around the World in 14 Films.

All films 2010 · Film Archive