Bertrand Schefer

Bertrand Schefer
Period: 2009-2010
Profession: Writer Bertrand Schefer was born in Paris in 1972.
“To begin with, a line of texts – or the constitution of an ideal library – which is the story of a poetic mutation of philosophy. In the process, we discover a genealogy of melancholy, from the Renaissance to Antonioni. And finally, crossings that defeat systems of thought (each time, impossible encyclopedias: Pic de la Mirandole, Theaters of Memory, Leopardi) and gradually transform knowledge into images, memory into visible matter and oblivion into literary space. A genesis for the practice of literature and cinema today. So the work begins: how and to what extent can fiction (novel or screenplay) take control of this defeated memory? Little autobiography, then, but rather: anachronism, ellipsis, dissolution of the subject. “A philosopher by training (Sorbonne/CNRS), he initially devoted himself to rediscovering the great unpublished texts of the Italian Renaissance, translating, editing and commenting on authors such as Marsilio Ficino (
Quid sit lumen , 1998), Pico della Mirandola (
Les Neuf cents Conclusions , 1999) and Giulio Camillo (
Le Théâtre de la mémoire , 2001). In 2003, he completed the first French translation of Giacomo Leopardi’s
Zibaldone, for which he received the Italiques and Laure Bataillon Classique awards. He worked at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in the early 2000s, and has contributed to various art magazines and exhibition catalogs, as well as numerous colloquia, radio programs and films on literature and cinema (Arte, INA, France Culture, Institut Français d’Architecture, Institut Culturel Italien, CNRS, Revues parlées Centre Pompidou – IMEC, Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume…). From 2004 to 2009, he was a reader in Arte France’s Fiction Unit. As a screenwriter, he regularly co-writes with Valérie Mréjen and has recently collaborated with Philippe Grandrieux.
L’Age d’or , his first novel, was published in 2008 by Allia. He is currently working on a book about Antonioni and a new novel. Viaticum for the Villa Medici:
We pursue across the immense sea an Italy that constantly slips away… (Virgil,
Aeneid , V, 630)
… and it is sweet for me to sink into this sea. (Leopardi,
L’Infinito )