Guillaume Cailleau (born 15 February 1978 in

Saumur Saumur () is a commune in the Maine-et-Loire department in western France. The town is located between the Loire and Thouet rivers, and is surrounded by the vineyards of Saumur itself, Chinon, Bourgueil, Coteaux du Layon, etc.. Saumur statio ...

) is a French artist and filmmaker.

Biography

From 2006 to 2011 Guillaume Cailleau studied at the

Berlin University of the Arts The Universität der Künste Berlin (UdK; also known in English as the Berlin University of the Arts), situated in Berlin, Germany, is the largest art school in Europe. It is a public art and design school, and one of the four research universiti ...

and was a postgraduate student under

Heinz Emigholz Heinz Emigholz (born 22 January 1948 in Achim, near Bremen, Germany) is a filmmaker, actor, artist, writer and producer. He lives and works in Berlin and Malta. Emigholz has produced a comprehensive filmic and artistic oeuvre and has also done perf ...

. Before his art studies he graduated as an engineer from Icam in

Nantes Nantes (, , ; Gallo: or ; ) is a city in Loire-Atlantique on the Loire, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the sixth largest in France, with a population of 314,138 in Nantes proper and a metropolitan area of nearly 1 million inhabita ...

. He also worked as a cinema projectionist in Paris and Berlin. In 2007 Guillaume Cailleau shot his first short film ''Blitzkrieg'', which premiered at the

International Short Film Festival Oberhausen The International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, founded in 1954, is one of the oldest short film festivals in the world. Held in Oberhausen, it is one of the major international platforms for the short form. The festival holds an International C ...

. Other films followed, such as ''Through'', a reference to

Michael Snow Michael Snow (born December 10, 1928) is a Canadian artist working in a range of media including film, installation, sculpture, photography, and music. His best-known films are ''Wavelength'' (1967) and '' La Région Centrale'' (1971), with the f ...

's installation ''Windowed Water'' (2007), the manually processed film ''H(I)J'' (2009), and ''Austerity Measures'' (2012), a collaboration with Ben Russell shot in Athens. In February 2014 Guillaume Cailleau was awarded a Silver Bear for his short film ''Laborat'' at the Berlinale Film Festival. Since 2009 Guillaume Cailleau has been a member of the independent film collective LaborBerlin. As a freelance video artist, he has worked in theater productions by

Thomas Ostermeier Thomas Ostermeier (born 3 September 1968, Soltau, West Germany) is a German theatre director. He currently mainly works for the Schaubühne. Biography Ostermeier began his theatrical career in 1990 acting under director Einar Schleef, one of his ...

, Hakan Savaş Mican und Mala Kline. In addition Cailleau developed numerous audiovisual performances, for instance with the experimental sound artist Werner Dafeldecker and the composer and conductor Timo Kreuser which were featured at international venues such as the

Edinburgh International Film Festival The Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) is a film festival that runs for two weeks in June each year. Established in 1947, it is the world's oldest continually running film festival. EIFF presents both UK and international films (all ti ...

(2014), Scratch Expanded Paris (2013) and COLOR SOUND FRAMES (2015) at

Serralves Serralves is a cultural institution located in Porto, Portugal. It includes a Contemporary Art Museum, a Park, and a Villa, each one an example of contemporary architecture, Modernism, and Art Deco architecture. The Museum, designed by Álvaro S ...

Museum. Cailleau is co-producer of Ben Russell's Film "Good Luck" (2017), which premiered at the

Locarno Festival The Locarno Film Festival is an annual film festival, held every August in Locarno, Switzerland. Founded in 1946, the festival screens films in various competitive and non-competitive sections, including feature-length narrative, documentary, sh ...

and was shown as a 4-channel video installation at

documenta 14 documenta 14 was the fourteenth edition of the art exhibition documenta and took place in 2017 in both Kassel, Germany, its traditional home, and Athens, Greece. It was held first in Athens from 8 April to 16 July, and in Kassel from 10 June ...

Kassel Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel and the district of the same name and had 201,048 inhabitants in December 2020 ...

Style

Guillaume Cailleau's work is influenced by American avant-garde cinema and performative practices in

Expanded Cinema {{italic title ''Expanded Cinema'' by Gene Youngblood (1970), the first book to consider video as an art form, was influential in establishing the field of media arts.Manovich, Lev. 2002. "Ten Key Texts on Digital Art: 1970–2000". Leonardo. 35 (5) ...

. Experimenting with duration, multiple exposures, color separation and manually treated single images, in addition to other methods of image editing, the forms of his films relate directly to their subjects. The process of filmmaking is often foregrounded in the artist's poetic compositions.

Filmography (selection)

* 2007: ''Blitzkrieg'' (short film, Premiere 54. International Short Film Festival Oberhausen) * 2008: ''Through''; with Benjamin Krieg (short film, Premiere 59. Berlinale, Forum Expanded) * 2009: ''H(I)J'' (short film, Premiere NYFF 2009, Views from the Avant-Garde) * 2012: ''Austerity Measures''; with Ben Russell (Premiere 62. Berlinale, Forum Expanded) * 2013: ''Abdou's Dread in Teatro Argentina, Roma'' (short film, Premiere Edinburgh International Film Festival 2013) * 2014: ''Laborat'' (short film, Premiere 64. Berlinale, Short Film Competition) * 2014: ''Hanging'' (Premiere Kienzle Art Foundation) * 2016: ''Organ Movement_For Elmer Kussiac_'' (music video, Premiere 62. International Short Film Festival Oberhausen)

Installations (selection)

* 2010: ''Un nuage'', Temps Organiques, MIRE cinéma expérimental & image en mouvement, Nantes 2012 * 2010: ''Creative Commons'', CONTACT, Royal Ontario Museum Toronto * 2011: ''Flowed'', Dada Post, Berlin * 2012: ''Lucile's Ghost on Atlas Top, Bruxelles'', Rencontres internationales Paris/Berlin * 2013: ''WILD WILD'', mit Hanna Slak, Doppeltes Berlin, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin

Performances (selection)

* 2013 ''#2.0x'', with Jan Slak, Scratch Expanded Paris * 2015 ''Resonator II'', with Werner Dafeldecker, Serralves Museum * 2015 ''Resonator III'', with Werner Dafeldecker und Splitter Orchester, Akademie der Künste Berlin, Musik für alle * 2015 ''Compound Interest'', with Timo Kreuser, Figura Festspiele 2015, Copenhagen * 2016 ''Exchange Rates'', with Timo Kreuser, Biegungen, Ausland Berlin

Awards

* 2014: Silver Bear Prize of the Jury, 64. Berlinale for ''Laborat'' * 2015: Jury Award Flexfest 2015 for ''Laborat'' * 2016: 2nd Prize, 62. International Short Film Festival Oberhausen for ''Organ Movement_For Elmer Kussiac_''