Fabien Raymond-yves Clouette

FABIEN CLOUETTE, University of Paris 10-Nanterre, France, was awarded a Fejos Postdoctoral Fellowship in Ethnographic Film to complete “ATALAYA WHALE FIRE.” A whale washes up on a beach in Finistère. Then a second rorqual washed up a little further on. Teams were working on these majestic, monumental bodies when a third whale washed up in the same area. Only this time, it was alive. Should it be refloated? Should we let nature take its course, however tragic? Not all the humans involved in these events agree on how to proceed. The whale, once the purveyor of an industrially produced fire — its oil illuminated the cities of Europe — is now the bearer of an almost holy fire, one that has become above all symbolic and emotional. The whale is a protected, “charismatic” animal, whose presence as much as absence moves and brings people together.