JEANNE LA PUCELLE

In this early video work, made in 1988, at the end of her second year at Sint-Lukas University College of Art and Design in Brussels, Ana Torfs shows a contemporary version of the life of Joan of Arc, based on testimonies of her friends and enemies, as transmitted in Jeanne d’Arc par elle-même et par ses témoins (1971) by historian Régine Pernoud. All the scenes were filmed during three days in Brussels, with Torfs's friends and acquaintances.

"Ana Torfs has the medieval texts recited in their proper environment by a multitude of characters in old-fashioned costumes. Set in static frames and bare lighting, the anonymous actors address their statements to the camera in a totally unemotional, almost indifferent manner. A comparison to Robert Bresson’s equally dry-as-dust Procès de Jeanne d’Arc (1962) is apt. More than any other artist of her generation, Torfs shows in her stylized work a relationship with the clear-cut image and texts constructions of modernist filmmakers such as Bresson, De Oliveira, and Straub." (Source: Edwin Carels in Inside the Visible, MIT Press, edited by Catherine de Zegher, 1996)