A film critic and an astute cultural observer, an absurdist filmmaker and a relentless explorer of uncharted geographies, Luc Moullet embarks in the 1990s on a series of travels that lead him from Foix, that he qualifies as ‘France’s most unfashionable town,’ to various other parts of the country, including the centrally located Imphy, which he believes could replace Paris as the country’s new capital, and finally overseas, to Des Moines, Iowa, that he parodically designates as ‘America’s belly.’ Supported and/or broadcast by the French private television channel Canal+, the three shorts released from 1994 to 1996 (Foix, 13’; Imphy, capitale de la France, 28’; Le Ventre de l’Amérique, 25’) joyfully mock the conventional travelogues, while raising a series of questions on capitalism, the consumer society, institutions, urban planning, tourism, and reflecting on cinema’s and television’s role in maintaining the established order.

31 March 2025, 20:30
Kino Toni
ZHdK, Toni-Areal, Pfingstweidstrasse 96, 8005 Zürich

The screening is open to the public. This event is part of an ongoing cooperation between the SNSF-funded research project Paranational Cinema – Legacies and Practices at the Department of Film Studies, University of Zurich and the Master Cultural Critique in Curatorial Studies at Zurich University of the Arts.