Louve is a Popstar
Louve confronts the female gaze economy in Popstar, directed by Julie Réali at HENRY.
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With Popstar, Louve unveils a manifesto-like track accompanied by a film directed by Julie Réali and produced by HENRY.
Through a visual language that is both clinical and deeply sensitive, the music video examines the mechanisms of projection, control and performance that continue to shape the image of women within the music industry. Drawing from the codes of audition culture, the film traces a gradual journey toward emancipation, where the gaze of others slowly begins to lose its hold.
The film opens in a casting waiting room populated by identical women, faceless rag dolls suspended in an almost mechanical state of torpor. In parallel, a younger version of Louve evolves within a space filled with deceptively warm tones, like a suspended memory.
Réali orchestrates a dialogue between these two temporalities until they eventually collide, while “Little Louve”, portrayed by Chiara, progressively disintegrates through subtle VFX work developed alongside 3D artist Leslie Camara, like a childhood dream dissolving as it confronts reality. When Louve finally enters the audition room, her face is covered by a mask fused directly onto her skin, created in collaboration with visual artist Noémie Minot.
Credits
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- Production Company Henry
- Director Julie Reali
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Credits
View on- Production Company Henry
- Director Julie Reali
- Executive Producer Ulysse Ancele
- Production Designer Anais Profit
- DP Alexander Khudokon
- Editor William Coutard
- Editor Julie Reali
- Post Producer Jeremy Le Bris
- VFX Sebastien Moisescot
- VFX Jeremie Duriez
- VFX Leslie Camara
- Graphic Designer Maud Appourchaux
- Graphic Designer Ambre Bourbier
- Colorist Zoe Candito
- Choreographer Mariana Benenge
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Credits
powered by- Production Company Henry
- Director Julie Reali
- Executive Producer Ulysse Ancele
- Production Designer Anais Profit
- DP Alexander Khudokon
- Editor William Coutard
- Editor Julie Reali
- Post Producer Jeremy Le Bris
- VFX Sebastien Moisescot
- VFX Jeremie Duriez
- VFX Leslie Camara
- Graphic Designer Maud Appourchaux
- Graphic Designer Ambre Bourbier
- Colorist Zoe Candito
- Choreographer Mariana Benenge
A latex second skin embodying the expectations projected onto her and the relentless pressure to become “more”: brighter, more desirable, more flawless. Under the scrutiny of an austere jury embodying different societal gazes, Louve becomes an object of examination. Yet as the performance unfolds, the balance of power begins to shift. The body loosens, movements grow more assured, the mask falls away. The film closes on a close-up of young Louve watching her adult counterpart with pride, as though reclaiming both agency and selfhood.
For Réali, Popstar is above all a film about disillusionment and the loss of innocence within a young girl’s dreams. From their very first meeting, the director and Louve developed an immediate connection rooted in shared experiences and a common observation: the enduring culture of performance that continues to weigh disproportionately on women, who are still expected to display endless resilience in order to access their ambitions and make their vision visible.
Conceived as a visual object situated somewhere between music video, cinema and contemporary performance, Popstar combines practical effects, sculptural work and VFX within a minimalist aesthetic informed as much by pop imagery as by body horror.
Based between Paris and New York, Réali has spent the past several years developing a practice at the intersection of filmmaking, immersive installation and emerging technologies. Deeply informed by questions surrounding contemporary identity, her work finds here a more intimate and organic expression.
