Surrogates
Premiere of Samir Kennedy’s short film
Wednesday, October 1st, 2025, at 8:30 pm
Videodrome 2, 49 Cr Julien, 13006 Marseille
In partnership with actoral and Videodrome 2.
Tickets available at Videodrome 2.
As part of the Actoral 2025 festival, an evening of short film screenings in two parts: first, a focus on the video practice of performer and dancer Samir Kennedy, in collaboration with Triangle-Astérides and on the occasion of the premiere of his most recent film; followed by three short films (by Lilith Grasmug, Julia Mellen, and Wendelien van Oldenborgh) curated in collaboration with FIDMarseille.
Two figures stalk the backstage and emptied-out rooms of the hollowed shell of an abandoned Marseille theatre—less character than phantasmic citation, spectral remnants of choreographic histories and queer presence. They evoke the disidentification and glamor of bygone performances, they linger here as hauntings rather than representations. Surrogates invites the viewer into a temporal suspension where the boundaries between presence and absence, performance and trace, become porous.
The screening will be followed by a discussion with Victorine Grataloup, Triangle-Astérides’ director.
Associate Artist at Triangle-Astérides in 2025, Samir Kennedy lives and works between Marseille and London.
As a performer, choreographer, director, sound designer and playwright, Samir Kennedy is part of the international art scene, performing in institutional as well as marginal and confidential settings.
In his plays, Samir Kennedy explores systems of class and race, as well as the expression of queerness, otherness and abjection; re-enacting and subverting archetypal characters such as the clown, the devil and the zombie. Samir Kennedy thus questions collective consciousness and cultural symbolism, using these figures as frameworks for examining identities and their intersectionalities.
In conjunction with his choreographic work, Samir Kennedy experiments with sound art to intensify his audience’s bodily experience, by creating immersive environments. He regularly collaborates with artists such as Florence Peake, Kidows Kim, Theo Clinkard, Colette Sadler, Amit Noy, Liam Warren, Sam Williams and Olive Hardy, creating original soundtracks for live performances and film works.
After initial training in musical theater, Samir Kennedy found his way into contemporary dance, completing his studies at Laban in the UK. In 2023, he graduated from the Master of Choreography program at the Institut Chorégraphique International - CCN Montpellier.