French filmmaker and visual artist Nicola Bailleul, author of the groundbreaking film les survivants (featured at the 2022 edition of the Milan Machinima Festival), has completed his new film, Booolan Vivarium (no relation to Lorcan Finnegan’s masterpiece, Vivarium). Clocking at 55 minutes, this experimental video essay tells the story of two friends, Léo (Léo Hoffsaes) and Nicolas (Nicolas Bailleul), who create Vivarium, a video game in which they observe the rotting of a house strangely reminiscent of their own. Faced with the scale of the task, cohabitation becomes complicated and the duo is put to the test. The film, which has distinct kaufmanesque vibes, will make its debut at the upcoming edition of Cinema du Réel.
An artist and researcher, Nicolas Bailleul is a graduate of the Haute École des Arts du Rhin (Strasbourg) and holds a master’s degree in anthropological and documentary cinema (Université Paris-Nanterre). He is currently a PhD candidate at the Université Paris 8 under the supervision of Patrick Nardin in co-direction of Gwenola Wagon. Through the making of films and narrative installations, Nicolas Bailleul explores the notion of intimacy in the age of connected networks. He is particularly interested in new amateur practices (designated or claimed as such), uses and hijacks their tools and platforms, invests/infiltrates their online/offline spaces. Nicolas documents, fictionalizes and narrates these explorations. His thesis project focuses on the (bed)room in the age of new media.