Pascal Baes

Director

Nice, France

Biography

Pascal Baes is a French experimental filmmaker, best known for his animated shorts, and a recipient of the Villa Médicis hors les murs award (Répertoire des Lauréats 1980-1994, Ministère des affaires étrangères, 1994, p.125). He also makes commissioned films for advertising and music videos. Born in 1959 in Nice (Alpes-Maritimes), he began by studying biology, painting and photography. It was in 1985 that he turned his attention to cinema, keeping a scientific eye, and specializing in frame-by-frame animation and the stop-motion technique. Literally "stop-action", he experimented with long exposure combined with slow shutter speed, enabling him to "freeze movement and reanimation", creating what was to become his trademark: the "Staccato effect". He works autonomously and extensively on movement and the body, notably through dance with the participation of his partner Aï Suzuki, and also experimented with the use of phenakistiscopes (stroboscopic disks) at his first exhibition in 1997, Kronolome. In 1995, he left Paris for a new location suitable for his experiments, which required freedom and open-mindedness, qualities he found in Brussels. He has also spent time in Tokyo, where the many rejected and unsuitable Japanese ghost stories of the 19th century have been a particular source of inspiration.