Forma

Cécile B. Evans

A Screen Test for an Adaptation of Giselle
Cécile B. Evans
2019 – Ongoing

A Screen Test for an Adaptation of Giselle by Cécile B. Evans is a screen test for a feature length adaptation of the 19th Century Industrial-era ballet Giselle as an eco-feminist thriller.

The infamous original tells the story of a fragile woman betrayed to death who rises in an afterlife propagated by a group of so-called scorned women. This adaptation is reimagined in a near-future where Giselle and her friends have moved on from a failed metropolis to her mother’s rural village to ‘reset society’. An invasion of their successful community by an unnamed presence sets off a contamination of their newly formed ecosystem with old power dynamics. Here, Giselle’s death emerges as an investigation into mutability and multiplicity as a strategy for escape, with the natural force of bacteria as an unexpected ally. With visuals that sew together high and low resolution digital footage, 16mm, and VHS recordings with animation, deep AI, and image upscaling techniques, the screen test serves as a sketch for a hybridised world where multiple realities simultaneously push to the surface. At the centre is the tension between the violence of essentialism and the fierce recalcitrance of solidarity, emotions, identity, data, and nature alike.

This project was supported by La Maison Balmain Paris, Galerie Emanuel Layr and Forma.


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A Screen Test
for an Adaptation of Giselle

Touring

A Screen Test for an Adaptation of Giselle continues to tour across festivals, museums and institutions around the world. See the full list of venues below or get in touch with Antonia Shaw (as@forma.org.uk) if you are interested in presenting the work.

Supporters

The film was supported by Forma, La Maison Balmain Paris and Galerie Emanuel Layr.

A Screen Test for an Adaptation of Giselle
Cécile B. Evans
2019 – Ongoing

A Screen Test for an Adaptation of Giselle by Cécile B. Evans is a screen test for a feature length adaptation of the 19th Century Industrial-era ballet Giselle as an eco-feminist thriller.

The infamous original tells the story of a fragile woman betrayed to death who rises in an afterlife propagated by a group of so-called scorned women. This adaptation is reimagined in a near-future where Giselle and her friends have moved on from a failed metropolis to her mother’s rural village to ‘reset society’. An invasion of their successful community by an unnamed presence sets off a contamination of their newly formed ecosystem with old power dynamics. Here, Giselle’s death emerges as an investigation into mutability and multiplicity as a strategy for escape, with the natural force of bacteria as an unexpected ally. With visuals that sew together high and low resolution digital footage, 16mm, and VHS recordings with animation, deep AI, and image upscaling techniques, the screen test serves as a sketch for a hybridised world where multiple realities simultaneously push to the surface. At the centre is the tension between the violence of essentialism and the fierce recalcitrance of solidarity, emotions, identity, data, and nature alike.

This project was supported by La Maison Balmain Paris, Galerie Emanuel Layr and Forma.

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Artist Biography

Cécile B. Evans, born 1983, is an Belgian-American artist who lives and works in London.

Evans is known for her use of video, installation, sculpture and performance. Her work is known for examining the value of emotions and their rebellion within different constructs and systems, and has been shown with museums and institutions like Tate Liverpool, Tramway Glasgow, Serpentine Gallery, and Whitechapel Gallery.

Touring

A Screen Test for an Adaptation of Giselle has started touring across festivals, museums and institutions around the world. Most recently:

17 – 19 October 2019 FIAC, MK2 Grand Palais, Paris, France

26 Nov – 8 Dec 2019 Jarman Award Screenings, Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK

4 Dec 2019 Art Basel Miami Screening with talk, USA

22 Jan – 2 Feb 2020 IFFR Rotterdam, The Netherlands

9 – 15 Nov 2020 La Salle de Bains, Lyon, France


Touring images


Installation view, Cecile B. Evans, A Screen Test for an Adaptation of Giselle, MMCA Seoul, part of Watch and Chill 3.0: Streaming Suspense (April 12 – July 23, 2023).

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Installation view, Cecile B. Evans, A Screen Test for an Adaptation of Giselle, Max Goelitz Gallery, Munich, part of in a forest of red, green and blue (11 May - 17 June 2023). Photo: Dirk Tacke.

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Touring

A Screen Test for an Adaptation of Giselle continues to tour across festivals, museums and institutions around the world. See the full list of venues below or get in touch with Antonia Shaw (as@forma.org.uk) if you are interested in presenting the work.

Supporters

The film was supported by Forma, La Maison Balmain Paris and Galerie Emanuel Layr.