ARAN: Film screening with live music by Christine Ott & Mathieu Gabry (Snowdrops)

With Aran, Christine Ott brings to a close a triptych of works by Robert Flaherty. Set on a storm-swept island off the coast of Ireland, the film depicts the daily life of a fishing family in the 1930s. In a cinematic concert with an ambitious, physical and immersive score, the composer and director create, a century apart, a veritable hymn to the courage of these inhabitants, united by great solidarity, in constant battle with the elements. Accompanied on stage by Mathieu Gabry (Snowdrops), the duo weave a score somewhere between impressionism, repetitive music and chamber post-rock. A cine-concert that’s out of this world, powerful and moving.

Original score composed by Snowdrops:
Christine Ott: Piano, Harp, Theremin
Mathieu Gabry: Keyboards, Drone Box

Christine Ott
Christine Ott is a French composer considered to be one of the great exponents of the ondes Martenot, one of the very first synthesizers. A pupil of Jeanne Loriod, Christine has worked as an “ondiste” for a number of orchestras, performing the classical repertoire of Messiaen, Honegger and Varèse; she was a member of Yann Tiersen’s group for ten years and has collaborated with Tindersticks, Radiohead or Syd Matters. Christine Ott developed her personal career at the dawn of the 2010s. She has released 5 solo albums in a repertoire that ranges from impressionist classical to experimental, and which is regularly compared to works by Brian Eno, Rachel Grimes and Michael Nyman. In 2011, she scored the film La fin du silence by Roland Edzard (Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes), and has also collaborated with other film-makers such as Martin Provost and Claire Denis. Her music, intense and sensitive, always has a unique cinematic dimension.

Mathieu Gabry
Before devoting himself fully to composing music, Mathieu Gabry worked on a number of projects in the audiovisual, museography and architecture fields (Ateliers Jean Nouvel, Monumenta Anselm Kiefer…). Guided by a certain symbiosis between image and sound, he wrote the music for Manta Ray by Thai director Phuttiphong Aroonpheng in 2018 (Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival – best Orrizonti film). In 2015 he formed the duo Snowdrops with Christine Ott, and together they developed a deeply personal approach to composition and orchestration. The chamber music collective presents a unique combination of classical, jazz, electronic and ambient music, and Snowdrops has released several albums to international critical acclaim. Also behind the jazz trio The Cry and Theodore Wild Ride, Mathieu Gabry is preparing his first solo album, to be released in 2025 under the name Sohlberg.

The partners of the event are the Silent Film Festival in Cracow and Kino Pod Baranami