Vincent Moon: How can we use computers,
cameras, microphones to represent the world
in an alternative way, as much as possible?
How, maybe, is it possible to use the Internet
to create a new form of cinema?
And actually, why do we record?
Well, I research these simple questions in mind,
then I started to make films 10 years ago,
first with a friend, Christophe Abric.
He had a website, La Blogotheque,
dedicated to independent music.
We were crazy about music.
We wanted to represent music in a different way,
to film the music we love, the musicians we admired
as much as possible
far from the music industry
and far from the cliches attached to it.
We started to publish every week
sessions on the Internet.
We are going to see a few extracts now.
From Grizzly Bear in the shower
to Sigur Ros in a Parisian cafe,
from [???] playing by the Eiffel Tower
to Tom Jones in his hotel room in New York,
from the Arcade Fire in an elevator
in the Olympiades
to Beirut going down stairs in Brooklyn,
from [??] in a car
to the National around a table at night
in the south of France,
from Bon Iver playing with some friends
in an apartment in Montmarte
to Yeasayer having a long night,
and many, many, many more
unknown or very famous bands.
We published all those things for free on the Internet,
and we wanted to share
all those films and represent music in a different way.
We wanted to create another type of intimacy
using all those new technologies.
At the time, 10 years ago actually,
there was no such project on the Internet,
and I guess that's why the project
we were making, the Take Away Shows,
got quite successful,
reaching millions of viewers.
After a while, I got a bit "Mmmm,"
I wanted to do something else.
I felt the need to travel and to discover some other music,
to explore the world,
going to other corners
and actually it was also this idea of nomadic cinema,
sort of, that I had in mind.
How could the use of new technologies
and the world could fit together?
How could I have my films in a bus
crossing the Andes?
So I went on a five-year travels around the globe.
I started at the time in the [???] filming
my music le bon Collection Petites Planètes,
which was also an homage to French filmmaker Chris Marker.
We're going to see now a few more extracts
of those new films.
From the Tecnobrega diva of northern Brazil, Gaby Amarantos
to a female ensemble in Chechnya,
from experimental electronic music in Singapore
with One Man Nation
to Brazilian [???] Tom Zé singing on his rooftop in Sao Paolo,
from the Bambir, the great rock band from Armenia
to some traditional songs
in the restaurant in Tbilisi, Georgia,
from the White Shoes,
a great [??] band from Jakarta, Indonesia
to Dakha Brakha, the revolutionary band
from Kiev, Ukraine,
from Tomi Lebrero
and his band and his friends in Buenos Aires, Argentina,
to many other places
and musicians around the world.
My desire was to make it as a truck.
To do all those things,
it would have been impossible
with a big company behind me,
with a structure or anything.
I was traveling alone with a backpack:
computer camera, microphones in it.
Alone, I shoot with just local people,
meeting my team, which was absolutely not
professional people, on the spot there,
going from one place to another
and to make cinema as a truck.
I really believed that cinema could be
this very simple thing.
I want to make a film and you're going to give me
a place to stay for the night.
I give you a moment of cinema
and you will [???].
Well, or other drinks, depending on where you are.
In Peru, the drink pisco sour.
Oh, well, when I arrived in Peru, actually,
I had no idea
about what I would do there,
and I just had one phone number, actually,
of one person.
Three months later,
after traveling all around the country, I hard recorded
33 films, only with the help of local people,
only with the help of people
that I was asking all the time the same question:
what is important to record
here today?
By living in such a way,
by working without any structure,
I was able to react to the moment
and to decide, oh, this is important to make now.
This is important to record that whole person.
This is important to create this exchange.
When I went to Chechnya,
the first person I met looked at me and was like,
"What are you doing here?
Are you a journalist? NGO? Politics?
What kind of problems are you going to study?"
Well, I was there to research
on Sufi rituals in Chechnya, actually,
incredible culture of Sufism in Chechnya,
which is absolutely unknown outside of the region.
As soon as people understood
that I would give them those films,
I would publish them online for free under a creative commons license,
but I would also really give them to the people
and I would let them do what they want with it.
I just want to represent them under a beautiful light.
I just want to portray them in a way that
their grandchildren are going to look at their grandfather,
and they're going to be like,
"Whoa, my grandfather is as cool as Beyoncé."
It's a really important thing.
(Applause)
It's really important,
because that's the way
people are going to look at their own culture,
at their own land.
They're going to think about it differently.
It may be a way to maintain a certain diversity.
Why you will record?
Hmm. There's really good quotes
by American thinker Hakim Bey
which says, "Every recording
is a tombstone of a live performance."
It's a really good sentence to keep in mind
nowadays in an era saturated by images.
What's the point of that? Where do we go with it?
I was researching. I was still keeping this idea
in mind: what's the point?
I was researching on music, trying to pull,
trying to get closer to a certain origin of it.
Where is this all coming from?
I am French. I had no idea about
what I would discover, which is a very simple thing:
everything was sacred, at first,
and music was spiritual healing.
How could I use my camera,
my little tool, to get closer
and maybe not only capture the trends
but find an equivalent, the [???], maybe,
something in complete harmony
with the people?
That was, that is now,
my new researches I'm making
on spirituality, on new spirits around the world.
Maybe a few more extracts now.