Biography
Born in 1967, Alain Escalle works as Director since 1990 as much in France as abroad (Japan, Germany, United States, UK, Belgium, Check Republic, Ukrain, Thailand), leading in the meantime his carrier as Visual Effects Artist. He studied in Graphic Art & Design and then embarked on a degree in Cinema studies and Cinematic techniques. He discovered, in 1991, the world of video creation as a Visual Effects Assistant for the Peter GREENAWAY’ s video dance M FOR MAN, MUSIC & MOZART.
1992 was a turning point for Escalle who started as a digital film with his first piece, UNLIMITED MIRAGE co-directed with Maurice Benayoun (1st Prize Imagined 1992 Motion Graphics category). Then, he direct his first short-film in 1994, FROM THE SHIPWRECK about the tragedy of the raft of the MÉDUSE (1st Prize SCAM, 3rd Prize Art category with IMAGINED).
After many visits at the age of 23 for commercials works to Japan (between 1993 and 2006), Escalle decided to dwell on Japanese culture and created THE TALE OF THE FLOATING WORLD. This short film, which was made of the stuff of dreams, won a raft of awards in some major world-class festivals (“GRAND PRIX” IMAGINA 2002 & preselection round at the 2003 CÉSARS (the French equivalent to the Academy awards). This film and his following video installation DRIPPING, GROUND ZERO approach Japanese history from a multiple viewpoint perspective to render the chaos of the Hiroshima bombing.
Ever since… Escalle has carried research, into Visual Arts from differents countries and periods. This technological and aesthetics research, between traditional form of cinema and Art history, leads Alain Escalle to collaborate with others directors, for more than ten years to projects such as feature films, music videos, or commercials as the series NTT GROUP for Japanese Télécoms. He also collaborated as an artistic director and visual effects specialist to a string of short films including CITIES OF THE PAST: BRUGES (1st price Imagined 1995, Art category) and A VIAGEM realised in high resolution for the Portuguese pavilion exhibited at the 1998 World Exhibition in Lisbon (3rd prize Imagined 1999, Art category).
Alain Escalle is always interested in working with professionals from other fields (dance, theatre, opera). He’s equally keen on further exploring and learn more experimental paths, be it in the field of cinema of animation for instance. His works are show on national TV channels Arte (a joint German/French channel), Canal + or France 3. He won many awards in international festivals (Festival du court métrage de Clermont-Ferrand, Festival du Nouveau Cinéma de Montréal, Imagina Monaco, le Niccograph au Japon, Ars Electronica en Autriche, les Monitors Awards à Los Angeles, Locarno, SCAM, etc…).
Photo credits © Thierry Rateau
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