Through her photographs and personal films, a woman shares her life with AIDS. The film invites us on an initiatory journey between motherhood and rebirth.
The camera focuses on hands handling images—photographs, paintings... memories of an unfolding life. Anne tells us of her deep dive into the unknown when she contracted AIDS at 22. This diving began with a grand celebration, so that love might prevail in the battle ahead. Then came the rollercoaster: a love that vanished, another found, a birth, and finally, AIDS declaring itself. A death sentence at the time, which ultimately led to a rebirth. If Anne has such perspective, it may be because the treatment of AIDS has radi- cally evolved over the years; nowadays, with proper treatment, it is no longer a death sen- tence—the virus can become undetectable (and thus untransmissible). Céline Carridroit and Aline Suter capture her testimony here, delicately illustrating it with Anne’s extensive archives and the Ciclic Mémoire collection, reflecting the many stories still left to tell, so that we do not forget the victims of the epidemic.

Aline Suter is born in Geneva in 1982. She studied at the universities of Geneva, Barcelona and Berlin, getting a master’s degree in Film History and Aesthetics in 2006. After working for several film festivals in Switzerland and France, she co-directed the short film Canorta with Céline Carridroit in 2013, which explores her intimate connection with her mother tongue, Romansh, a minority language in Switzerland. In 2014, their new co-production Resuns (Echoes in English) was the culmination of this quest for identity and sound. After premiering in international competition at the Visions du Réel festival, the film was screened at some 50 festivals around the world. It won the award for best medium-length film at the Trento Film Festival. From 2014 to 2017, she worked as a teaching assistant in the Cinema/Cinéma du Réel department at HEAD-Geneva. In 2018, she took over, with a collective of directors, the management of Earthling Productions, a documentary film production company based in Geneva. She continued her work as a director with Laetitia in 2018. In 2019, she co-directed Les Oiseaux du paradis with Céline Carridroit, which was selected for international competition at Dok Leipzig and several other international festivals. Alongside developing her projects as a director, she works as a videographer for theater directors and, more recently, with the Théâtre de la Comédie in Geneva. She also teaches video and sound at the CFP Arts in Geneva and regularly gives film workshops to teenagers who have dropped out of school.

Céline Carridroit is born in 1982. She graduated from the Geneva University of Art and Design (HEAD) and got a master’s degree in creative documentary filmmaking from Lussas in France. In 2012, she co-founded Les Films de la Caravane, and then worked as a teaching assistant in the Cinema/Cinéma du Réel department at HEAD. She regularly collaborates with directors and artists as a sound recordist, a director of photography, an assistant director and an actress. She currently teaches cinema and visual arts at CFP Arts. She works as a director within the collective Earthling Productions and has created a space dedicated to sound diffusion and creation within this collective: Earthling Son. She co-organizes Les Yeux grand fermés, a weekend of listening and encounters around sound and radio creation. La couleur qu’on a derrière les yeux (The Color Behind Our Eyes), her graduation film, won an award at the Traces de Vie Festival in Clermont-Ferrand and has been screened at several European festivals. Her first film, Ils m’indiquent le Nord (They Show Me North), deals with the relationship between humans and their landscape. She continues this approach with Resuns, a film co-directed with Aline Suter on the sound of a Swiss minority language. This film won the award for best medium-length film at the Trento Festival. Her latest film, Les Oiseaux du paradis, was screened at the Melbourne and Leipzig film festivals, as well as other European festivals. She is currently working on Johanna, a full-length film. 

TECHNICAL SHEET
Direction & Editing – ALINE SUTER and CÉLINE CARRIDROIT Cinematography – ALINE SUTER Sound Recording – CÉLINE CARRIDROIT
Featuring – ANNE COURVOISIER FONTAINE
Sound Design – ADRIEN KESSLER Music – ADRIEN KESSLER
Color Grading – BLAISE VILLARS C-SIDE PRODUCTIONS
Subtitling – SANDRANE DUCIMETIÈRE •
C-SIDE PRODUCTIONS A production by – EARTHLING PRODUCTIONS Co-production – PVA-GENÈVE English Translation – ALEX DOWNING
© Earthling Productions • 2019
Duration: 15 min
Original version: FRENCH Available Subtitles: ENGLISH Format: HD COLOR DCP Audio: 2.0 & 5.1