André Breton et ses amis à Saint-Cirq-Lapopie | A film by Guillaume Bijl

André Breton et ses amis à Saint-Cirq-Lapopie [Assembled from found archi­val foot­a­ge, ca. 1951 — 1963] fol­lows the Surrealist poet André Breton and seve­r­al of his friends during lei­su­re­ly sum­mer moments in the French vil­la­ge of Saint-Cirq-Lapopie.

In 1950, Breton bought a hou­se in Saint-Cirq-Lapopie, a medie­val vil­la­ge in the Lot Valley in sou­th­wes­tern France. The hou­se was dila­pi­da­ted at the time but was recent­ly res­to­red; it now bears the name Maison André Breton and hou­ses the Centre International du Surréalisme et de la Citoyenneté Mondiale (CISCM).

In short, sta­ged tableaux vivants, the film depicts a series of sha­red moments with fel­low artists whom Breton invi­ted to the vil­la­ge bet­ween 1951 and 1963. Artists such as Max Ernst, Man Ray, Dorothea Tanning, Meret Oppenheim, Benjamin Péret, and Toyen enjoy an eve­ning stroll, dine in the gar­den, and pose for a group port­rait. The see­min­gly lyri­cal care­free­ness of the sce­nes stands in stark con­trast to the two World Wars the artists had recent­ly experienced.

The film adopts a simi­lar artis­tic logic to Bijl’s ear­lier film James Ensor in Oostende, ca. 1920 (2000), in which the renow­ned Belgian artist James Ensor and seve­r­al friends spend a care­free day at the beach. Whereas Ensor in that film was port­ray­ed by a look-ali­ke, for André Breton et ses amis à Saint-Cirq-Lapopie Bijl cho­se fel­low artists, cast for their strong resem­blan­ce to the ori­gi­nal sur­re­a­list artists, to bring the­se impor­tant his­to­ri­cal figu­res to life.

All the sce­nes in the film are based on his­to­ri­cal pho­to­graphs, film foot­a­ge, and tes­ti­mo­nies, ran­ging from recol­lec­ti­ons of vil­la­gers, who as child­ren saw Breton wal­king through the streets, to Breton’s own wri­tings. As is typi­cal of Bijl’s artis­tic prac­ti­ce, the film plays with the boun­da­ries bet­ween fact and fic­ti­on, his­to­ri­cal docu­ment and sta­ging, tri­vi­a­li­ty and cri­ti­cal reflection.

The film is a co-pro­duc­ti­on with Radicale1924, the resi­d­en­cy pro­ject for con­tem­po­ra­ry artists in Saint-Cirq-Lapopie, foun­ded in 2021 by Chantal Yzermans and with which Guillaume Bijl had been clo­se­ly invol­ved from the begin­ning as a par­ti­ci­pa­ting artist.

The film was conceived, developed and initiated by Guillaume Bijl and then collectively realised according to his vision by the film's team and actors, two weeks after Guillaume Bijl's death. Even after his passing, he remained the driving force behind the project. All those who contributed to this film dedicate it to the loving memory and enduring inspiration of Guillaume Bijl.

The film was shot two weeks after the death of Guillaume Bijl (1946 – 2025).