Filmmaker and exhibition curator, Marie Losier (France, 1972) works between Paris and New York and has presented her films and videos in museums, galleries, biennials, and international festivals. Throughout her career, she has chronicled the lives of artists known and loved by critics around the world, such as the Kuchar brothers, Richard Foreman, Tony Conrad, Genesis P-Orridge, Alan Vega, Guy Maddin, Peter Hristoff, Peaches, Felix Kubin, and The Residents. Extravagant, poetic, dreamlike, and unconventional, her films explore the lives and work of these artists, their music, and their unique and singular art. The tribute dedicated to her will be part of the program of the 66th edition of the Festival dei Popoli - International Documentary Film Festival - to be held in Florence from November 3 to 9.

"In recent decades, no one has been able to interpret the spirit of the artistic avant-garde like Marie Losier, and in this sense, we can consider her one of the last representatives of a trajectory that spanned the entire 20th century, bringing its sparks to us. At a time when music documentaries suffer from a general trivialization of approach, Losier focuses on the artists she encounters in a reckless and courageous manner, questioning the most appropriate form to dialogue with their modes of expression. These are not hagiographic or condescending biopics, but explorations of creative universes and immersive journeys into lives driven by rebellious instincts and devoted to breaking the rules. It is cinema that is also a vocation for freedom in an age of conformity and fear such as the one we are living in. (Alessandro Stellino, artistic director of the Festival dei Popoli)

We will see the national premiere of his latest film, Barking in the Dark, about the cult San Francisco band The Residents, known for never showing their faces in public, hidden behind huge eyeballs. Among the short and medium-length films scheduled: Tony Conrad, DreaMinimalist (2008), an entertaining and insightful encounter with the American violinist, composer, and artist who sings, dances, and recalls his youth and his friendship with Jack Smith; Alan Vega, Just a Million Dreams (2014) on the rebellious life of the visual artist and pioneer of electronic and minimalist rock, voice of the post-punk duo Suicide in the 1970s and 1980s; Felix in Wonderland - premiered at the Locarno International Film Festival in 2019—dedicated to German composer and musician Felix Kubin; the video clip set at CERN (the International Center for Nuclear Research in Geneva) Electric Storm, 100 Years of Theremin, which celebrates the origins of electronic music in conjunction with the centenary of the theremin. Also not to be missed is Marie Losier's first feature film, “The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye,” a portrait of pioneering musician-artist Genesis Breyer P-Orridge (of Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV) and his partner Lady Jaye - premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in 2011 and winner of the Caligari and Teddy Awards - and the irreverent “Peaches Goes Bananas,” a film revolving around singer-performer Peaches that took 17 years to make, premiered at the Venice Film Festival (2024) and distributed in theaters in France, Switzerland, the United States, and Portugal.
Marie Losier's films have been screened at prestigious venues such as the Cannes Film Festival, the Venice Film Festival, Le Jeu de Paume, the Berlinale, the Rotterdam Film Festival, IDFA, the Tate Modern, the Palais de Tokyo, the Centre Georges Pompidou, and the Cinémathèque Française. Marie Losier was included in the 2006 Whitney Biennial (Whitney Museum, NYC), had retrospectives at Le Jeu De Paume - Museum of Contemporary Art in Paris in 2019 and at MoMA in New York, where all her films were acquired for the museum's archives in 2018. For the past eight years, Marie Losier has taught film to MFA film students at LA HEAD in Geneva, Switzerland.

The tribute to Marie Losier is realize in collaboration with Unifrance, Ambasciata di Francia, Institut Français Italia e Institut Français Firenze.