Behind closed doors, seated between a white wall and a white table, a woman with no face embodies a serie of threatening sound figures, as many distressing voices that inhabit her. Penetrated by creatures inhabiting tales collective imagination, she becomes the playground and the battlefield of feminine entities fighting over a same territory. Her body, never exposed entirely, is deconstructed, dismantled in a primary and insatiable bestiary, threatening its own sovereignty.

Is she a witch ? A spider-woman, a goddess, a she-wolf or a carnivorous plant ? And will they triumph over the woman they colonised ?

The Magma Chamber is a discourse without words, a cry without voice, that tells us the violences and the ambivalences contained in the archetypes structuring female identity.

Interview in the Women CineMakers, Special Edition 2019

Jury Prize and Public Prize of Festival Danse en Film 2018
 

Written by Shantala Pèpe
Directed in collaboration with Antonin de Bemels
Choreography and Performance Shantala Pèpe
Photography & Sound design Antonin de Bemels
Lighting design Hugues Girard
Lighting technician Stéphane Rimasauskas
Costumes Shantala Pèpe with the help of Patricia Eggerickx
Editing Antonin de Bemels & Shantala Pèpe
Script supervisor Mariyya Evrard
Sound mixing Alexis Oscari
Color grading Claire Beunckens

Production Incógnita asbl/Shantala Pèpe
Co-production Stéla - DesArts//DesCinés . Production manager in France: Anna Alexandre
With the support of the Bureau d'Accueil des Tournages de La Loire, The City of Saint Etienne, Quoi d'autres asbl, and Athanor asbl

Thanks to Catherine Simon, Félix Blum, Stéphane Jossart, Cédric Celorio-Lopez, Alexandre Wajnberg, and the Atelier du Théâtre Libre

Images©Antonin De Bemels

2 jun 2018  PREMIERE at D Festival - Espace Senghor, Brussels
                    Evening composed with the opening performance of the solo Carcan
31 may 2018  AVANT PREMIERE / Exhibition Entrailles II, Brussels

2022
10 years of Numéridanse – Online Festival
Selection DAN.CIN.LAB

2021
Zahrada/GARDEN, Banska Bystrica – Slovakia

2019
VideoDanzaBA - Buenos Aires, Argentina 
Manisfesto Film Festival/Amsterdam Film eXperience Showcase - Holland 
Venice Biennale - Italy 
DAN.CIN.FEST - Saint-Etienne, France 
MADATAC X / Post Digital Star - Madrid, Spain 

2018
Danse en Film - Bordeaux, France / Jury Prize and Public Prize
Agite y Sirva - Mexico City
International dancefilmfestival Brussels - Belgium
Jumping Frames Festival - Hong-Kong 
POOL TanzFilmFest - Berlin, Germany