My Benjamin

Technicals:

Countries : Mexico, France

Language: French

Genre: culture, ballet, portray

Production companies: Tita B Productions, Cima

Industry: Impulso Morelia 2022, DocSur 2022

Synopsis:

Benjamin Pech is an Etoile at the Paris Opera Ballet. The film follows his last year as a professional dancer before his retirement. At 41 years old, Benjamin suffers from a serious hip injury. He knew that to undergo a surgery would deprive him of 8 months of dancing and he chose to live this last year with the body that dance itself had shaped as much as it had damaged. « Play it as it lays, » as they say in poker. Over the years, the Garnier Opera House has become his home. He has inhabited this magical and mysterious place since childhood. The endless corridors, dressing rooms, rehearsal studios, and majestic stairs bear witness to his life. Benjamin moves through them as a familiar place, and memories of an 11-year-old Benjamin on a VHS tape or the announcement of his appointment as a principal dancer, emerge around the corner of a corridor. These milestones in his career resonate with a daily practice that has become complicated due to the pain.

Victoria Clay Mendoza:

Victoria is a franco-Mexican director and director of photography. As a director, Victoria is interested in filming certain characters in the art world. She began by making a portrait of young Maletillas and their process of becoming bullfighters “Maletilla”, 2003 (Morelia IFF); then of plastic artist Sophie Calle in “Sans Titre”, 2012 (IFCALI, FIFF, ARTIS, Best Film at Portugal’s Films on Art Festival); and Barbet Schroeder in “Some More” (Morelia IFF, IFCALLI, La Rochelle, and Centre Pompidou.)

“My Benjamin” is her second feature documentary.