l'Image (The Image)

1987, 41:42 min, b&w and color, sound

L'Image poses, through a fantastical tale, a series of interrogations about the origin of the image and its function. What is an image? A resemblance? An imitation? Or a transformation? In the postmodern era the idea of "the image" has been lost in a semiotic quest. In this surrealistic fairy tale the protagonists Thérèsa and Codca (played by the Nysts) travel on an expedition to a legendary country where images metamorphose, in order to recapture and cleanse the idea of representation as the duplicator of reality. The Nysts' whimsical universe of images is the stage for a discursive inquiry into contemporary culture, and the consumption of the images that inundate everyday life.

In French with English subtitles.

Directed by Danièle and Jacques Louis Nyst. Screenplay: Jacques Louis Nyst. Director of Photography: Toon Illegems. Sound: Wim DeClercq, Vincent Kremer. Animation: Phillipe Dans. Original Music: Eric Gertsmans. A Project of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; A Coproduction of Continental Vidéo/Diablo, Antwerp; RTBF Liege; The CAT Fund, Boston; WGBH New Television Workshop, Boston. Executive Producers: Kathy Rae Huffman, Ivan Beeckaert.