TECHNES Encyclopedia Database

Colour Overflows the Screen: Christian Lebrat, by Sophie Lorgeré

Christian Lebrat was born in 1952 and studied visual arts at Université Paris 1. At the time, he was struck by the way in which the Austrian filmmaker Peter Kubelka structured his films on the basis of its photograms. In 1983, with Giovanna Puggioni and Prosper Hillairet, he founded the publishing company Paris Expérimental, dedicated to publishing books on avant-garde and experimental cinema. While he considers himself a “very poor bricoleur,”^[7] it is nevertheless possible to see in his work this manner of conceiving a film’s creation. The economy of the loop, blocking the lens with scotch tape or strips of cardboard and manipulating the projectors during his performances enable him to explore different facets of cinema’s apparatus.