A Flower in the Mouth
Currently shown at Biennale Arte 2026 and Grandfilm VoDA Flower in the Mouth is a film diptych about time running out and how to live through the days that remain. The first act, filmed as an observational documentary in the world’s largest flower market, follows millions of bouquets transiting through a cavernous refrigerated hangar to be sold at auction, an industrial process at once beautiful and terrifying. The film transitions to fiction in a second act freely adapted from a Pirandello play. A man with a flower-shaped tumour on his lip accosts a traveller in an all-night café. Their seemingly mundane conversation becomes a metaphysical monolog as the man, feeling death upon him, clings to life by scrupulously observing its activity, tracking reality in every detail, as if to fill the gap between himself and the rest of the world.
Credits
Director
- Éric Baudelaire
Writers
- Éric Baudelaire and
- Anne-Louise Trividic
DoP
- Claire Mathon
Editor
- Claire Atherton
Producers
- Éric Baudelaire (Poulet-Malassis) and
- Sylvie Pialat (Les Films du Worso)
Co-producers
- Jeonju Cinema Project ,
- Zsuzsanna Kiràly (Flaneur Films) ,
- Thibault Carterot (M141) , and
- Proarti
Technical information
France, South Korea, Germany 2022DCP · 1 : 1.85 · 5.1 Mix ·
With
- Oxmo Puccino and
- Dali Benssalah
Funding provided by
- Jeonju Cinema Project 2020 ,
- Medienboard Experimental Fund ,
- Fondation Antoine de Galbert ,
- Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen ,
- M141 , and
- Proarti
Festivals
- Berlinale – Forum ,
- Jeonju International Film Festival ,
- La Berlinale à Paris, Centre Pompidou ,
- Marienbad International Film Festival ,
- L'Alternativa Independent Film Festival ,
- Lo schermo dell'arte ,
- DocLisboa ,
- Viennale ,
- Zinebi, International Festival of Documentary and Short Film of Bilbao , and
- Biennale Arte 2026
Distributors
- Les Films du Worso and
- Arsenal, Institut für Film und Videokunst
Bio/Filmo
Éric Baudelaire is an artist and filmmaker based in Paris, France. Trained as a political scientist, he developed a research-based artistic practice that spans photography, moving image, installation, and per-formance. His feature films have been presented at major film festivals such as the Berlinale, Locarno, and the New York Film Festival, and within exhibitions where they appear as part of larger installations combining other works, archival materials, and extensive public pro-grammes. In recent years, his work has been exhibited at the Centre Pompidou, MMK Frankfurt, Kunsthalle St. Gallen, Museo Reina Sofia, Bergen Kunsthall, Kunstinstitut Melly, Fridericianum, Beirut Art Center, and Gasworks, as well as in the São Paulo Biennial, Whitney Biennial, Sharjah Biennial, Taipei Biennial, and currently in the Venice Biennale.