The Sowers of Plague

Christian Merlhiot was born in Niort (France) in 1963. He studied at the French National Institute of Fine Arts in Bourges from 1981 to 1987. Between 1994 and 1995, he made a residency at the Villa Medicis in Rome with a view to writing a film script. During his stay, the scenario took shape and came to life, thus giving birth to his first feature-film: Les semeurs de peste (The Sowers of Plague). Christian Merlhiot taught cinema and video studies in several French art schools, especially in Angoulême, Nancy and Bourges. Currently in charge of the teaching department of the Pavillon, a laboratory dedicated to creation run by the Palais de Tokyo (Paris), he is also the founder of pointligneplan, an association promoting crossovers between visual arts and cinema. French film maker Érik Bullot wrote a text about Christian Merlhiot’s oeuvre which was included in the collective work pointligneplan published by the Editions Léo Scheer (Fr-2002). The same publishing house also released a book dedicated to his films comprised of a text written by French art critic Fabien Danesi and a DVD featuring three short-films (Fr-2003). His film Silenzio – shot in Japan in 2004 – was released on the screens in Spring 2006. He also set up a creation workshop broadcast on French radio station France Culture in February 2007. From this experience also arose a film called Des Indes à la planète Mars (From India to the Mars Planet), which was selected to run for best French film during the latest Festival International du Film Documentaire de Marseille (Marseille International Documentary Film Festival), and will be released in April 2008. His latest film The Trial of Oscar Wilde was released in April 2010.

http://www.minorcinema.com/

Filmography

Plus près du soleil, 1988, 30min
François d’Assise, 1989, 20min
Sauvez nos âmes, 1991, 18min
La Fuite, 1992, 25min
Journal d’un amateur, 1994, 62min
Journal de l’Atlantique, 1995, 30min
Les Semeurs de peste, 1995, 62min
La Seine, 1997, 13min
Autour de Bérénice, 1998, 45min
Voyage au Japon, 1999, 19min
Voyage au pays des vampires, 2001, 62min
Kyoto mon amour, 2002, 18 min
Chronique des love-hôtels au japon, 2003, 30 min
Caï Hô [Le Lac], 2004, 36min
L’Âge d’or, 2004, 29min
Shinning City, 2005, 15min
Silenzio, 2005, 75min
I Wish your Eyes, 2006, 50min
As if [A Tennis Court], 2006, 7min
As if [A New World], 2006, 7min
Des Indes à la planète Mars, 2007, 80min
Rice Bowl Hill Incident, 2007, 40min
Yoko Ogawa, voyage dans la mémoire des morts, 2008, 15min
Le procès d’Oscar Wilde, 2009, 63min
De la couleur, 2009, 20 min
De la danse / Pièce n°1, 2010, 7 min
De la danse / Pièce n°2, 2010, 4 min
De la danse / Pièce n°3, 2010, 4 min
Art Storage, 2010, 7 min