Tabou de boue

A camera dives into our toilets. Help us produce a film about one of our last big taboos...

Project visual Tabou de boue
Successful
79
Contributions
10/18/2015
End date
€8,555
Out of €8,000
106 %

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Tabou de boue

<p> <iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="300" src="//cdn.embedly.com/widgets/media.html?src=https%3A%2F%2Fplayer.vimeo.com%2Fvideo%2F138305115&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fvimeo.com%2F138305115&amp;image=http%3A%2F%2Fi.vimeocdn.com%2Fvideo%2F533596251_295x166.jpg&amp;key=ff2702755d9749cda571c6d6c2f3eb46&amp;type=text%2Fhtml&amp;schema=vimeo" width="400"></iframe></p> <p>  </p> <p> The film will be either 52 minutes long or 90 minutes long: “<em>the work of a film-maker is to listen to his film, the only one to know its duration”,</em> my former movie teacher said.</p> <p>  </p> <p>  </p> <p> <strong>SUMMARY</strong></p> <p>  </p> <p> Excrement is nowadays one of the last big taboos.</p> <p> Although a universal and daily matter, the relationship to it is all but simple.</p> <p> On behalf of behaviorism, we sometimes go as far as endangering our health.</p> <p> Social taboo and intestinal transit: consequences of the unsaid on the human being.</p> <p> What do we flush away?</p> <p>  </p> <p> <img alt="Wcmer-1441697913" src="https://d3v4jsc54141g1.cloudfront.net/uploads/project_image/image/229445/WCMer-1441697913.jpg"></p> <p>  </p> <p>  </p> <p> <strong>FOREWORD</strong></p> <p>  </p> <p> In my film <em>Trash to spare</em>, I was tackling the issue of trash: how to manage it? Is it really a matter of waste? I went through the whole range of it: from organic to recyclable waste, deliberately leaving out industrial and nuclear waste. But I was not aware of leaving out a whole part of that black tide: waste water and the waste it carries, a big part of it being made of … our poop. But unlocking the door to the toilets is all but easy.</p> <p>  </p> <p> This story starts in our plates, when eating.</p> <p>  </p> <p> In November 2007, I received an invitation for introducing my film Trash to spare to a festival in Corsica. At lunch, I sat at a table of men unknown to me but cheerful and friendly. As the meal went on, I found out that conversation centered round a rather uncommon and disconcerting topic: human excrement. This is how I met Philippe, the manager of the Gandouziers, a small atypical company that manufactures and sets up dry toilets (sawdust in place of water) for events (festivals, fairs, conferences…). At that time, I could not say the so scary word that defines the subject of their job. I was disturbed. And yet, what more natural indeed than talking about something that binds us all together, something that we all do? The seed of the film was sown.</p> <p>  </p> <p> <img alt="Gandousiers_bra0083688-1441706908" src="https://d3v4jsc54141g1.cloudfront.net/uploads/project_image/image/229522/Gandousiers_BRA0083688-1441706908.jpg"></p> <p>  </p> <p> Throughout the festival, Philip explained to me what the environmental issue in these masses of waste water is. Opposite to the sewerage system, dry toilets waste no water, while producing very useful organic manure. Although I could understand how interesting such an alternative sewerage system is, I could not overcome my deep disgust for that unclean matter. Every day I could watch <em>the</em> <em>Gandousiers</em> handling their big cans, cleaning their toilets and talking about the litters of urine daily produced. I was full of admiration for their self-control. And yet my embarrassment didn’t give way: rational on one hand, irrational on the other one.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Still unaware of the reason why I felt like making this film, I followed <em>the Gandousiers</em> in their steps to the<em> Intestinals</em>, the national meeting of specialists in the environmental sewerage system. On the agenda was a show, implying a decisive meeting for me: the actor Jean-Marie played “The human thing”, which was a conference about poop. The text did appeal to me: it sounded right and was full of impressive data. I filmed it all.</p> <p>  </p> <p> <img alt="Dudu-1441697831" src="https://d3v4jsc54141g1.cloudfront.net/uploads/project_image/image/229443/Dudu-1441697831.jpg"></p> <p>  </p> <p> A few years later, I moved in Herault, 50 km away from Jean-Marie’s home : a stroke of luck that drove me outside of my limits. I specially learnt how to say the word “poop” without blushing. Today I’m trying to get a closer and more rational view of it. I now feel ready to get inside this seemingly repulsive subject. The issue for me rather turns into an initiatory journey through what is most common in our lives: excrement. A rich and fascinating universe, the borders of which we unfortunately do not dare to get over, for fear of immodesty. This film will thus be felt as an attempt to enter that unknown country.</p> <p>  </p> <p> My intention is to bring us to think over that taboo act, which is defecation, a so vital and yet so embarrassing function, starting from a simple question: why are excrement and the foregoing excretion act such a source of contempt, despise and awkwardness that can sometimes display pathologies?</p> <p>  </p> <p> <img alt="Cec-1441466465" src="https://d3v4jsc54141g1.cloudfront.net/uploads/project_image/image/228825/Cec-1441466465.jpg"></p> <p>  </p> <p>  </p> <p> As looking into our intestinal transit condition, the camera will try to understand the grounds for the human behavior in France, and more generally speaking in our occidental societies. For, whatever we feel, our relationship to shit and more generally speaking, to anality, never leaves us unmoved: disgust, shame, but sometimes artistic or sexual fascination… The emotional load is heavy.</p> <p>  </p> <p> And for a good reason: our life depends on excrement, as Hugo Verlomme clearly explains it in his book “The Thing:  reasons for breaking the poop taboo” (Mama Editions, 2000) :</p> <p>  </p> <p> <em>“The new-born has to expel his small meconium after his first breath.</em></p> <p> <em>We say in Latin: </em>‘Inter urina et faeces nascimur’<em> (</em><em>we are born between urine and faeces).</em></p> <p> <em>Gandhi used to welcome his visitors asking them: ‘Good morning, how are your bowels?’</em></p> <p> <em>In the same way, our ‘How are you?’ would be short for ‘How are you going to the toilet?’</em></p> <p> <em>Popular wisdom is aware that excrements are the reflection of our health state.”</em></p> <p>  </p> <p> Excrement is also the final full stop.</p> <p>  </p> <p> A few seconds before dying, my grand-father exclaimed :</p> <p> “<em>Shit! There it’s all clearing off to my pants</em>.”</p> <p>  </p> <p> The more I go through the thing, the closer I get to that truth, stated by so many thinkers :  </p> <p> “<em>Shit is life”.</em></p> <p>  </p> <p> <img alt="Proctowc-1441707325" src="https://d3v4jsc54141g1.cloudfront.net/uploads/project_image/image/229530/ProctoWC-1441707325.jpg"><img alt="Homeopathewc-1441707336" src="https://d3v4jsc54141g1.cloudfront.net/uploads/project_image/image/229531/HomeopatheWC-1441707336.jpg"><img alt="Agnes-1441707346" src="https://d3v4jsc54141g1.cloudfront.net/uploads/project_image/image/229532/Agnes-1441707346.jpg"></p> <p>  </p> <p>  </p> <p>  </p> <p> <strong>SYNOPSIS</strong></p> <p>  </p> <p> A woman’s shadow speaks on a white wall:                                                            </p> <p> “<em>I am in shit… but what is shit?”</em></p> <p>  </p> <p> A lecturer speaks to the public in a conference room:                                                                              “<em>Everybody does it, nobody speaks about it</em>.</p> <p> <em>Every day we talk about death, war, but nobody ever talks about poop. But why, why?       </em></p> <p> <em>The paradox is that we never talk about poop, but we have it every day in our mouth :        </em></p> <p> <em>‘Oh shit! What the fuck !’ ”</em></p> <p> Somebody working in excrement business protests:</p> <p> “<em>Shit in water means death</em>”.</p> <p>  </p> <p> <img alt="Philippe_1-1441466308" src="https://d3v4jsc54141g1.cloudfront.net/uploads/project_image/image/228819/Philippe_1-1441466308.jpg"></p> <p>  </p> <p> Brigitte has suffered from constipation for over thirty years, but nobody knows about it. Camille has to drive his companion out of the flat to manage to relieve herself.   </p> <p> Children don’t bother with principles. Arthur, a 3 year old-boy, cheerfully cries out to his mom:</p> <p> “<em>it’s a mammoth poop!”</em></p> <p>  </p> <p> A physician states: in France nearly 50 million laxative boxes are sold every year. A good reason for that: the country has between 5 and 15 million constipated people, three times more women than men; many more than our neighbors. Stress, constipation, hemorrhoids, colon cancer and finally anal fissure make a present-day chain reaction. All physicians state it: shitting well is living well.</p> <p>  </p> <p> In his office in Versailles, Jean-Luc St-Martin, a specialist physician tries to calm down his patients every day. They are so anxious to talk about defecation that they sometimes faint. He even happened to allow some ladies suffering from stomach to “fart”, permission their husband would not give them, however vital it is!</p> <p>  </p> <p> Men and women talk about their relationship to transit: from cheerfully  pushing as children to eloquently silent as adults.</p> <p>  </p> <p> A historian gives a new definition of clean and dirty. Throughout centuries, excrement moves between gold and trash.                                                                                                   </p> <p> In the 17th century, it was most refined to take a snuff of “poudrette”, a powder made of dried excrement.                                                                                                                                      In the 18th century, dresses of the color of dolphin poop were very fashionable, and night-commodes were a luxury present. Today we lock inside the toilets.                                                                                                 </p> <p> Psychiatrists talk about psychological causes for such a taboo: anal state, relationship to the couple….</p> <p>  </p> <p> <img alt="Psygroupe-1441707952" src="https://d3v4jsc54141g1.cloudfront.net/uploads/project_image/image/229548/PsyGroupe-1441707952.jpg"></p> <p>  </p> <p> Death and shit:  In the present-day society, what is disturbing is denied, rejected, made invisible. The smallest room, intimacy and flushing away with salutary water: no wonder that the relationship to the thing is so complex.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Cleaning out the matter, cleaning out the smell, cleaning out the color.</p> <p>  </p> <p> As meetings go by, the picture of a taboo takes shape; the issue is beyond the door to our toilets.</p> <p> “<em>Wherever it smells like shit, it smells like being</em>”, the poet Antonin Artaud stated.</p> <p>  </p> <p> But what is hiding behind our disgust for that stuff and for anality in general?</p> <p> Do we want to be all-mighty, do we hold back too much or do we give way too much? Are we prim and proper?</p> <p>  </p> <p> For the young lady, the issue is to look straight in the mirror, to accept her shadow.</p> <p>  </p> <p> <img alt="But__anne-c_cile_deliaud_-_photo_fabrice_ranoux______8-1441707970" src="https://d3v4jsc54141g1.cloudfront.net/uploads/project_image/image/229549/but__Anne-c_cile_Deliaud_-_photo_Fabrice_Ranoux______8-1441707970.jpg"></p> <p>  </p> <p> Trying to understand the psychological origins of this defecation taboo, the film drives us across the mirror, on the side of the defeated one, the abandoned one.           </p> <p>                         </p> <p> In short, what do we flush away ?</p> <p>  </p> <p> “<em>Shit ? All is written inside, </em><em>like</em><em> in a book</em>”</p> <p> Dominique Laporte, <em>History of shit</em> (1978)</p>

Allocation of funds

<p> We usually wait until we get the money and then we start shooting. Because of impatience, global state of emergency… the project has already started. As a result : nice shootings, touching solidarity, characters very much involved, demands for screenings (already) and… debts !</p> <p>  </p> <p> That’s why it’s a matter of urgency: your contribution will allow us to finish shooting as well as to start post-production (editing, sound mix, music, color…)  without fearing early morning calls from my banker!</p> <p>  </p> <p> <img alt="Solangechaloupe-1441706013" src="https://d3v4jsc54141g1.cloudfront.net/uploads/project_image/image/229501/SolangeChaloupe-1441706013.jpg"></p> <p>  </p> <p> The quotation for the 52 minutes film until  completion, that is standardized, mixed and ready to be released, is around 50 000€.</p> <p>  </p> <p> I first knocked at the usual doors to film production (television, SCAM, financial aid from the county), but due to the shadowy subject, they all stayed closed.  I thus decided to proceed differently with a brand new not-for-profit organization -the artistic collective<em> Image en Vers</em>-, which produces the film, with vital help from my photographer colleague Brigitte Cano. But even if reducing expenses to the minimum, we need a minimum of 8 000€ for :</p> <p>  </p> <p> - Transport (train, car pooling) : 800 Euros</p> <p> - Technical needs (material for sound recording,  recording studio etc.) : 200 Euros</p> <p> - Salaries and social contributions for a most involved team, who all the same needs to keep the pot boiling: buto dancer (what’s that? To find out, help us and watch us!), actor (voice), camera men, editor, sound engineer, color standardizer and director : 4 000 Euros</p> <p> - DVDs and photo prints : 2 000 Euros</p> <p> - Communication tools (website, posters, pressbook) : 1 000 Euros</p> <p>  </p> <p> If the fund-raising is over 8 000€ (I hold on!) we could then give way to our creativity and pay our artists and technicians more decently. And let’s be crazy, we could finance an English version, for shit has no borders.</p> <p>  </p> <p> The film will be released on November 19th 2015, on Internatinal Toilet Day, which wants to bring attention to hygiene matters. But if we want these questions to matter in schools and other places, we need to dare talking about it... By helping this movie, you will enable these words to come out.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Thank you all for your help in this dary but meaningful project !</p> <p>  </p> <p>  </p> <p> <img alt="Cecwctram-1441706037" src="https://d3v4jsc54141g1.cloudfront.net/uploads/project_image/image/229502/CecWCTram-1441706037.jpg"></p>

Rewards

€5

  • 4 contributions
Membership to the not-for-profit organization "Image en Vers", which produces the film, and a big Thank you !

Estimated delivery: November 2015

€10

  • 14 contributions
Membership to the not-for-profit organization "Image en Vers", which produces the film, and your name in the film's credits.

Estimated delivery: November 2015

€20

  • 19 contributions
Membership to the not-for-profit organization "Image en Vers", which produces the film, your name in the film's credits and a nice poster (A3 size) of the film.

Estimated delivery: January 2016

€50

  • 16 contributions
Membership to the not-for-profit organization "Image en Vers", which produces the film, your name in the film's credits, a nice poster (A3 size) of the film and a DVD copy of the film.

Estimated delivery: January 2016

€75

  • 4 contributions
Membership to the not-for-profit organization "Image en Vers", which produces the film, your name in the film's credits, a nice poster (A3 size) of the film, a DVD of the film and a DVD of Cecile Couraud’s first documentary « Trash to spare »

Estimated delivery: January 2016

€100

  • 4 contributions
Membership to the not-for-profit organization "Image en Vers", which produces the film, your name in the film's credits, a nice poster (A3 size) of the film, a DVD of the film and a DVD of Cecile Couraud’s first and last documentaries («Trash to spare » and « Ô Roots ! »).

Estimated delivery: January 2016

€500

  • 1 contribution
Membership to the not-for-profit organization "Image en Vers", which produces the film, your name in the film's credits, a nice poster (A3 size) of the film, a DVD of the film and a DVD of Cecile Couraud’s first and last documentaries («Trash to spare » and « Ô Roots ! »), a big-size print of a photography of the film's shooting, an invitation to the first screening and a screening of the film in your city in France.

Estimated delivery: January 2016

€1,000

  • 2 contributions
Membership to the not-for-profit organization "Image en Vers", which produces the film, your name in the film's credits, a nice poster (A3 size) of the film, a DVD of the film and a DVD of Cecile Couraud’s first and last documentaries («Trash to spare » and « Ô Roots ! »), a big-size print of a photography of the film’s shooting, an invitation to the first screening and your name as a coproducer in the film’s crédits. And you will be invited to attend to a day of work (editing, sound mix) with us!

Estimated delivery: January 2016

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