Skip to main content

Color-Blind

Ben Russell

2019 00:30:23 French Polynesia, FranceColorStereo16:916mm film
Tags:
Expedition/Travel, Experimental Film, Landscape, Nature, Post-colonialism

Description

A synaesthetic S16mm portrait made between French Polynesia and the French province of Bretagne, Color-Blind recruits the restless ghost of Paul Gauguin as an uneasy spirit guide in excavating the colonial legacy of a decidedly syncretic post-colonial present. Featuring im/material guest appearances by: white-tipped reef sharks, color tests, Aldous Huxley's Island, any number of sunsets, Marquesan techno, Herman Melville, authorized Gauguin reproductions, an illegal kava ceremony, the beach in the 4th season of Survivor, traditional face tattoos, Haka dance rehearsals, Warren Sonbert's Short Fuse and a first-hand account of 1 of the 210 nuclear tests conducted by the French government in Polynesia between 1960-1996.

Produced by A PERTE DE VUE FILMS
Co-produced by CaSk FILMS + LA BÊTE

About Ben Russell

Ben Russell is an American artist, filmmaker and curator whose work lies at the intersection of ethnography and psychedelia. His films and installations are in direct conversation with the history of the documentary image, providing a time-based inquiry into trance phenomena. Russell was an exhibiting artist at documenta 14 (2017) and his work has been presented at the Centre Georges Pompidou, the Museum of Modern Art, the Tate Modern, the Museum of Modern Art Chicago, the Venice Film Festival and the Berlinale, among others.  He is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship (2008), a FIPRESCI International Critics Prize (IFFR 2010, Gijón 2017), premiered his second and third feature films at the Locarno Film Festival (2013, 2017) and won the Encounters Grand Prize at the Berlinale Film Festival (2024).  Curatorial projects include Magic Lantern (Providence, USA, 2005-2007), BEN RUSSELL (Chicago, USA, 2009-2011), Hallucinations (Athens, Greece, 2017) and Double Vision (Marseille, France 2024-). He is currently based in Marseille, France.