De Humani Corporis Fabrica (2023)
Director: Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Véréna Paravel Run Time: 118 min. Rating: NR Release Year: 2023
Country: France, Switzerland, United States
Language: French
About the film:
World Premiere in the Directors’ Fortnight program at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.
Five centuries ago, anatomist André Vésale opened up the human body to science for the first time in history. Today, De Humani Corporis Fabrica (2023) opens the human body to the cinema. It reveals that human flesh is an extraordinary landscape that exists only through the gaze and attention of others. As places of care, suffering and hope, hospitals are laboratories that connect every body in the world.
“Extraordinary… a work of purest corporeal poetry… and a remarkably unvarnished, sympathetic portrait of doctors and nurses at work.”
—Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times
About the filmmakers:
Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel are anthropologists, artists, and filmmakers who collaborate and innovate at Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab and Film Study Center. Their immersive documentaries are ethnographic cinematic experiences exploring vast and difficult subjects. Their works include the festival winners Leviathan (2012) on the ocean and the modern fishing industry, Caniba (2017), a daring reflection on the significance of cannibalism in human existence, and Somniloquies (2017), a deep dive into the dreams of the world’s most prolific sleep talker.
Their films and installations have been screened in prestigious festivals such as AFI, BAFICI, Berlin, CPH:DOX, Locarno, New York, Toronto, Cannes, and Venice. Recently, their work joined the permanent collections of museums such as MoMa and the British Museum, and has been exhibited at Tate Modern in London, Whitney Museum, Centre Pompidou, and Berlin Kunsthalle.
Their latest documentary feature De Humani Corporis Fabrica (2023), an exploration of the human body, premiered at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival before screening at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival and the 2022 New York Film Festival.
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