Véréna Paravel

Rachel loves her life, her students, her friends, her ex, her guitar lessons. When she falls in love with Ali, she grows close to his 4-year-old daughter, Leila. She tucks her in, looks after her, and loves her like a mother... which she isn’t. Not yet. Rachel is 40. The desire for a family of her own is growing stronger, and the clock is ticking. Is it too late?

An experimental portrait of the North American commercial fishing industry through the lens of GoPro cameras placed on a fishing vessel off the coast of New England.

Caniba is a fresco about flesh and desire. It reflects on the discomfiting significance of cannibalism in human existence through the prism of one Japanese man, Issei Sagawa, and his mysterious relationship with his brother, Jun Sagawa.

An extraordinary adventure through the interior of the human body; or the discovery of an alien landscape of unprecedented beauty.

A short companion to Leviathan, set inside the fishing vessel.

Works with sound recordings of Dion McGregor, who became famous for talking in his sleep.

An experimental portrait of the North American commercial fishing industry through the lens of GoPro cameras placed on a fishing vessel off the coast of New England.

An experimental portrait of the North American commercial fishing industry through the lens of GoPro cameras placed on a fishing vessel off the coast of New England.

An experimental portrait of the North American commercial fishing industry through the lens of GoPro cameras placed on a fishing vessel off the coast of New England.

Caniba is a fresco about flesh and desire. It reflects on the discomfiting significance of cannibalism in human existence through the prism of one Japanese man, Issei Sagawa, and his mysterious relationship with his brother, Jun Sagawa.

Caniba is a fresco about flesh and desire. It reflects on the discomfiting significance of cannibalism in human existence through the prism of one Japanese man, Issei Sagawa, and his mysterious relationship with his brother, Jun Sagawa.

An extraordinary adventure through the interior of the human body; or the discovery of an alien landscape of unprecedented beauty.

An extraordinary adventure through the interior of the human body; or the discovery of an alien landscape of unprecedented beauty.

An extraordinary adventure through the interior of the human body; or the discovery of an alien landscape of unprecedented beauty.

A short companion to Leviathan, set inside the fishing vessel.

Works with sound recordings of Dion McGregor, who became famous for talking in his sleep.

Works with sound recordings of Dion McGregor, who became famous for talking in his sleep.

An apocalyptic vision of the vertiginous intermingling of the sea and the sky.

A portrayal of a hidden enclave of auto shops and junkyards fated for demolition in the shadow of a new baseball stadium in Queens. The film observes this vibrant community of immigrants – where wrecks, refuse, and recycling form a thriving commerce – as it struggles for daily survival and contests New York City's development scheme.

A portrayal of a hidden enclave of auto shops and junkyards fated for demolition in the shadow of a new baseball stadium in Queens. The film observes this vibrant community of immigrants – where wrecks, refuse, and recycling form a thriving commerce – as it struggles for daily survival and contests New York City's development scheme.

“Ah humanity! reflects on the fragility and folly of humanity in the age of the Anthropocene. Taking the 3/11/11 disaster of Fukushima as its point of departure, it evokes an apocalyptic vision of modernity, and our predilection for historical amnesia and futuristic flights of fancy. Shot on a telephone through a handheld telescope, at once close to and far from its subject, the audio composition combines excerpts from Japanese genbaku film soundtracks, audio recordings from scientific seismic laboratories, and location sound.”—Ernst Karel, Verena Paravel & Lucien Castaing-Taylor

A documentary about a group of pilgrims who travel to Nepal to worship at the legendary Manakamana temple.

No synopsis available yet.

Maya is a photographer. She takes photos related to the eyeball. Kunio is a neurosurgeon and an independent documentary film director. He is interested on making a documentary about Maya. A mysterious eyeball collector watches for Maya's own eyeballs.

A two-channel installation utilizing both digital video and 16mm film, Commensal focuses on the controversial figure of Issei Sagawa, who gained notoriety in 1981 when, as a graduate student in Paris, he murdered a fellow student and engaged in acts of cannibalism. After his release from a mental institution, Sagawa returned to Japan, and later appeared in innumerable documentaries and sexploitation films. In contrast to earlier journalistic documentaries on Sagawa, the film suspends moral judgment and explores a realm that eludes classification as either “documentary” or “pure fiction,” to instead chart the ambiguous territory between crime, fantasy, and social realities, between an individual and the economy of his public persona.

Submarine spirits of monsters and demons, soldiers and sailors, pirates andwarriors, slaves and serpents, skulls and skeletons.

An archaeology of both the ocean and the image, this piece reworks the sequences of Leviathan that were shot in and from the sea. Projected at 1/50 of the speed at which they were recorded, it simultaneously slows movement and animates the still, revealing a liminal universe at the threshold of human vision. In this flux, one beholds a netherworld of aqueous forms that appear in one frame and disappear or transmogrify into something else in the next.

An archaeology of both the ocean and the image, this piece reworks the sequences of Leviathan that were shot in and from the sea. Projected at 1/50 of the speed at which they were recorded, it simultaneously slows movement and animates the still, revealing a liminal universe at the threshold of human vision. In this flux, one beholds a netherworld of aqueous forms that appear in one frame and disappear or transmogrify into something else in the next.

An archaeology of both the ocean and the image, this piece reworks the sequences of Leviathan that were shot in and from the sea. Projected at 1/50 of the speed at which they were recorded, it simultaneously slows movement and animates the still, revealing a liminal universe at the threshold of human vision. In this flux, one beholds a netherworld of aqueous forms that appear in one frame and disappear or transmogrify into something else in the next.

Ephemeral encounters recorded during a walk beneath the elevated tracks of the No. 7 subway line in New York City.

Filmed in the Rhône River delta, Delta is the second part of the prelude to Cosmofonia, an ongoing film and sound project that shifts attention from a point of view to a point of hearing. Here, Paravel turns toward the inaudible sounds of the Earth: infrasonic vibrations, seismic resonances, interspecies signals, and the acoustic traces of human activity. Most of these frequencies remain beyond ordinary human perception. By rendering them audible, the work opens a new sensory field and invites audiences to encounter the environment not as scenery, but as a dense and active mesh of relations.