Michelle & Noel Keserwany, Les Chenilles
For the 16th Lyon Biennial, Manifesto of Fragility , Michelle and Noel Keserwany present their new short film “Les Chenilles”, produced with the support of KADIST. “It is between the breasts of women that cocoons should be placed to hatch”. Inspired by this imagery and by the working conditions of women workers in silk workshops in the 19th century between the city of Lyon and the Levant, particularly in Mount Lebanon, this film addresses a contemporary story of displacement, working conditions, the effect of historical events on our modern lives, our own fragility after subsequent disappointments and trauma, and our sense of resistance through the story of an encounter between two women. Through satirical and incisive songs, screenplays, and other narrative formats, Michelle and Noel Keserwany upend expectations and disrupt conventional power dynamics with humorous twists of storytelling and caustically poignant commentaries on ingrained injustices and current socio-political developments. In their work, language is both a corrective for imbalances like inequality and corruption, as well as an indicator of inherent codes of class and status. Michelle and Noel Keserwany’s projects demonstrate their investment in raising the voices and narratives of women from diverse backgrounds in collaborations that embolden participants to express themselves more freely, and show the potential in communal practices for nurturing expressions of vulnerability as a form of empowerment. (Recipient — Michelle Keserwany, writer — of the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2018).