
PHANTOMS OF BAMIYAN
Documentary
Director: Patrick Pleutin
Original screenplay and concept: Patrick Pleutin
Image: Patrick Pleutin & Mohammad Mehdi Zafari
Edit: Reza Serkanian
Persian calligraphy: Atiq Rahimi – Voice: Ali Hazara
Paintings: Patrick Pleutin
Mix: Emmanuel Joubert – Music: Fady Zakar
Color correction: Lalunela
Production exécutive: 24 Images – Farid Rezkallah
Partners:
IFrench Institute of Kabul
French Embassy in Afghanistan
Afghanculturemuseum.org
Production : Pleutin production
Distribution: Overlap Films
Available on DCP – Video – DVD
BBC broadcast: 2018
Synopsis:
Ali revient dans son village de la vallée de Bâmiyân en Afghanistan où les Bouddhas géants ont été détruits par les Talibans en 2001. Il parcourt les grottes et les niches vides avec une plaque de verre sur la tête afin de tenter de capturer les traces fantômes de ces sculptures disparues.
Links: Allociné – UniFrance – IMDB
Year: 2017
Language: Persian
(French & English subtitled)
Genre: Documentary
Duration: 30 min
Shooting Format: Digital
Aspect Ratio: 16:9
Country of production: France, Afghanistan
Watch the trailer (coming soon)




Festivals
– Vesoul’s International Film Festival of Asian Cinemas (2018)
– Curious Travelers Festival of ST-ETIENNE (2018)
– San Giò Verona Video Festival – Competition (2018)
Best Cinematography Prize + The Dino Coltro Traditions Prize
– Angers First Film Festival (2019)
Read Full Article
Initially there is a play by the painter to intervene directly on the bruised landscape of Buddhas of Bamiyan in Afghanistan, an inspiration stimulated by voids, memory volumes, sculptures, paintings. Its part of creation is at the service of the memory of the place but in no case enslaved to this memory. It participates in the inventory of places but without being a scientific record and without presenting itself as one of the keys of reading the vestiges. She invents a re-reading of the place with the place and for the place. Humbly but without illustrating or reconstituting it. Hence a modesty of means: – a pot of black, a pot of white and earth, organic material of the place, – a plate of glass, true opening inside, transparent field that plays on the porosity and on The outside of the field and interrogates the entire space outside the plate, – a wooden frame made to measure by craftsmen carpenters with their vernacular techniques. This device allows him to create in situ ghost paints, only captured by digital (digital sensors of camera, camera and Iphone.). This work is subject to erasure because it is to regain the profound meaning of the passage of time, fragility, the ephemeral, notions to which the erosion of places so grandiose refers us.
Director
PATRICK PLEUTIN

Biography
Patrick Pleutin is a French visual artist who works in particular on the gestures of painting live, in tension with musicians’ work, the movements of dancers and places inhabited by memory. The additional dimensions of his work are on the one hand the connection between play with painting and the public’s look, and on the other hand the openness he grants to the connection of the pictorial with other artistic practices, disruption of the arts enabled by digital technology. For many years, he has collaborated with the Orchestre de Paris, choreographer Dominique Boivin, writer Atiq Rahimi, architect Yona Friedman and director Jean-Baptiste Decavèle.
Filmography
2017 – Fantômes de Bamiyan
2016 – POURQUOI CHERCHEZ-VOUS ?
2016 – MOZART AU CHOCOLAT
2016 – LA DESTRUCTION DU SENSIBLE
2016 – UNE IDENTITÉ CULTURELLE AFGHANE ?
2013 – AUTOUR DES TABLEAUX D’UNE EXPOSITION
2013 – THE ANTINORI FAMILY, FROM ARCHIVES TO FAMILY MEMORIES
2012 – COLOR
2012 – FIRENZE JULY 24TH 2012, THE ANTINORI FAMILY, FROM ARCHIVES TO FAMILY MEMORIES
2012 – VOYAGE EXPRESS EN ORIENT
2009 – BÂMIYÂN
2008 – CARTE POSTALE BÂMIYÂN
2001 – PAVANE DE L’ANGE
1998 – L’HÔTEL DU VENT
1992 – TÊTES RAIDES
1991 – SALUT LES FILLES, DE FATON CAHEN
1990 – LE NOMBRE D’OR
1990 – PIGMENT BAGDAD
1988 – BANGALA