Marie Losier

{{short description|French filmmaker and curator (born 1972)}}

{{BLP sources|date=March 2016}}

File:Marie Losier.jpg

Marie Losier (born 1972{{cite journal|last1=Losier|first1=Marie|date=2007|title=What is a French Western?:One Part Reality To Two Parts Fiction|url=http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/pajj.2007.29.2.20|journal=PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art|volume=86|page=20|doi=10.1162/pajj.2007.29.2.20|access-date=4 March 2017|doi-access=free}} in France) is a filmmaker and curator who has worked in New York City for 25 years and has shown her films and videos at museums, galleries, biennials and festivals. Losier studied literature at the University of Nanterre (France, BA, 1995) and Fine Arts at Hunter College in New York City (MFA, 2003). She has made a number of film portraits of avant-garde directors, musicians and composers, such as the Kuchar brothers, Guy Maddin, Richard Foreman, Tony Conrad, Genesis P-Orridge, Alan Vega, Peter Hristoff and Felix Kubin. Whimsical, poetic, dreamlike and unconventional, her films explore the life and work of these artists.

Losier’s films are regularly shown at prestigious venues such as The Cannes Film Festival, Le Jeu de Paume, The Berlinale, Rotterdam Film Festival, IDFA, Tribeca Film Festival, The Tate Modern, MoMA, Le Palais de Tokyo, Le Centre George Pompidou and La Cinematheque Francaise. She was included in the 2006 Whitney Biennial (Whitney Museum, N.Y.C.){{Cite web|title=Whitney Biennial 2006 :: Day for Night|url=https://whitney.org/www/2006biennial/artists.php?artist=Losier_Marie|access-date=2017-03-06|website=whitney.org}} She had a retrospective of her films at MoMA - Museum of Modern Art in 2018 in NYC,{{Cite web|title=Marie Losier: Just a Million Dreams {{!}} MoMA|url=https://www.moma.org/calendar/film/5017|access-date=2021-11-30|website=The Museum of Modern Art|language=en}} and a retrospective at Le Jeu De Paume - the Museum of Contemporary Art in Paris in 2019.{{Cite web|title=Marie Losier. Confettis atomiques !|url=https://jeudepaume.org/evenement/marie-losier-confettis-atomiques/|access-date=2021-11-30|website=Jeu de Paume|language=fr-FR}}

Losier’s first feature film was a portrait of pioneering musician-artist Genesis Breyer P-Orridge (of Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV) and their partner Lady Jaye Breyer P-Orridge. The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in February 2011, winning the Caligary and the Teddy Awards. {{Cite news|date=2011-02-19|title=Argentine film takes top Teddy award as Berlinale prizes approach|language=en|url=https://www.thelocal.de/20110219/33209|access-date=2017-03-06}}{{Cite web|last=Renninger|first=Bryce J.|title=Berlinale 2011 {{!}} Teddy Awards Announce Best in Queer Film {{!}} IndieWire|url=http://www.indiewire.com/2011/02/berlinale-2011-teddy-awards-announce-best-in-queer-film-243581/|access-date=2017-03-06|website=www.indiewire.com|language=en}} She also won the Grand Prize at Indielisboa, the Prix Louis Marcorelles and the Prix des Bibliothèques at Cinema du Reel, and many more awards for the documentary. The film was released in France, Canada, Mexico, Germany and in the USA. In 2009 Genesis Breyer P-Orridge described Losier's filmmaking process "It’s a very new, radical way of making documentaries, and quite honestly, we think what Marie does and the way she does it will be the template for the future."{{Cite web|last=Award|first=Teddy|title=Teddy Award - The official queer award at the Berlin International Film Festival|url=http://www.teddyaward.tv/en/archive/?a-z=1&select=T&id_film=325|access-date=2017-03-06|website=www.teddyaward.tv}}

In 2013/14 Losier was awarded the prestigious DAAD Residency Award in Berlin and the Guggenheim Award to work on her new feature film Cassandro The Exotico!, a portrait of the celebrated Mexican wrestler Saul Almendariz. {{Cite web|title=John Simon Guggenheim Foundation {{!}} Marie Losier|url=http://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/marie-losier/|access-date=2017-03-06|website=www.gf.org|language=en-US}}

She is currently an artist-in-residence at La Cité des Arts, Paris and her feature film Cassandro The Exotico! premiered at The Cannes Film Festival in May of 2018. It was released in France in December 2018 and will be in theaters in the US, opening at the Metrograph NYC in the summer of 2019.

Losier recently had a mid-career retrospective at MoMA NY and all of her films were acquired for the museum’s archives in November of 2018. She recently had an exhibition, in collaboration with Pauline Curnier Jardin, for the Fondation Ricard for May 2019.{{Cite web|title=Exposition Parties, sans éteindre la lumière|url=http://fondation-pernod-ricard.com/|access-date=2021-12-03|website=Fondation d'entreprise Pernod Ricard|language=en-US}}

She premiered a new film at Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland in August 2019: a feature film on the German composer and musician, Felix Kubin (Felix in Wonderland!).

She presented a mid career retrospective for the Museum Le Jeu de Paume, Paris{{Cite web|title=About Jeu de Paume|url=https://jeudepaume.org/en/about-us/|access-date=2021-12-03|website=Jeu de Paume|language=en-US}} in November 2019 and for the Cinematheque of Athens (November 2019); a solo exhibition for Anne Barrault’s contemporary art gallery{{Cite web|title=About|url=https://galerieannebarrault.com/en/about/|access-date=2021-12-03|website=galerie anne barrault|language=en-US}} in Paris, where she exhibited photography, paintings and film installations (January 2020) (www.galerieannebarrault.com). She has a solo show at the Film Gallery{{Cite web|title=losierex|url=https://www.film-gallery.org/losierex|access-date=2021-12-03|website=The Film Gallery|language=en-US}} in Paris now and is preparing a solo show for the Solar Gallery at Vila Do Conde in Portugal for 2022, and a solo show at the Contemporary Museum/Transpalette in Bourges for 2023.

For the past four years Losier has been the coordinator and director for first year MFA cinema students at LA HEAD in Geneva, Switzerland (Haute École d’Art et de Design à Genève{{Cite web|title=About {{!}} HEAD|url=https://www.hesge.ch/head/en/school/about|access-date=2021-12-02|website=www.hesge.ch}}) where she teaches 16mm filmmaking.