Sylvia

A woman named Sylvia will give in, in the space of a single encounter with a stranger, to an introspective session that will lead her to talk about her dad that she only met once.

  • Azimut
    Producer
  • Brune Charvin
    Director
  • Sylvia
    Key Cast
  • Brune Charvin
    Camera
  • Alice Papin & Brune Charvin
    Editor
  • Thea Synowiecka
    Voice
  • Alice de Conti
    Music arranged by
  • Alice Papin
    Music adapted to screen by
  • Alice Papin
    Co-direction
  • Belarusian traditional song 'Shtoy pa moru'
    Music from
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    Sylvia
  • Project Type:
    Experimental, Short, Other
  • Runtime:
    3 minutes 27 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    February 19, 2018
  • Production Budget:
    0 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    France
  • Country of Filming:
    France
  • Shooting Format:
    digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    3:2
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No

  • France
Director Biography - Brune Charvin

I have traveled and worked as a photographer and videographer throughout four continents these past 5 years. From two short documentaries in Senegal, to working with Robert Wilson in New York, I lived 3 years in Indonesia where I worked on Athira, a new feature directed by Riri Riza and conducted researches on my own documentary, 'Rasa'. After being a documentarian for the Hutto Project, a Berlin-based music and performance education program for children of displaced populations, I came back to France where I work as an artist and free lance.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

‘Sylvia’ is the first of five intimate women’s portraits that all together form a mini documentary series called ‘Introspection’. Inspired from Wim Wender’s ‘Pina’, Yann Arthus Bertrand’s ‘Human’ and Peter Lindbergh’s female portraits, Introspection is anchored in a humanist will to introduce women with authentic portraits of vulnerability, depth and strength, through long silences, music and movement based interviews.
We enter into a decade where women, once more, get together to express their identity, shape their values and status within society, fight for the acknowledgment of their choices and rights. This portrait, one of five, has the will to participate to this wave, to strengthen it.

Music has a very singular role in each portrait: as it is said to speak the soul, each piece is taken from the world's musical folklore, different from the subject's original culture; aiming at associating what usually, isn’t.
The musical director, Alice de Conti and myself chose for ‘Sylvia’, French with Lebanese origins, a traditional Byelorussian song called ‘Shtoy pa Moru’, which means ‘Out there on the sea’, sung by Thea Synowiecka, a Polish singer.

As each musical piece is exclusively made of harmonies, all coming from a single voice, the role of music changes; from its classic 'third wheel' role, to becoming a real narrator of the subject’s journey. Music best embodies this humanist approach; at a very deep level, we are people. We are moving entities who speak the same language, this of emotions.