Past exhibition

Area 51, Nevada, USA is a film that explores the surroundings of Area 51 in the United States, in the Nevada desert. This military zone is heavily guarded, protected and under surveillance by the American army. No one can access it, not even planes or satellites, which are forbidden to fly over it. To prevent any intrusion, this zone has been enlarged by integrating the mountains that surround it; they form a natural border impossible to cross. We can nevertheless occasionally see strange and unusual lights escape from it, and also hear the sound of distant explosions.

These clues, familiar to the local inhabitants, but strange for tourists, lead us to believe that secret activities take place there. Whether they are experiments re- lated to military technology or an extra-terrestrial presence, the area’s activities and the impossibility of seeing and knowing what goes on allows the collective imagination to succumb to myriad fantasies.

This film keeps its distance from any witness accounts or hypotheses and invites spectators to visit a space in which they hear strange, offscreen noises. We also come across characters who have witnessed an event we know nothing about and which we never stop trying to find.

Area 51, Nevada, USA is a co-production Le Fresnoy – Studio national des arts contemporains and Piano Sans Films, 2017.