Extra Life (and Decay)

A polyphonic narrator – filmmaker, parent, forest, insects, fungi, childcare worker – declares their absolute refusal of labor exploitation, and their necessity to join collective bodies in resistance. Who ordered legibility? In an incantation to conjure authority, the film unfolds the connections between the inventions of nuclear families and managed forest plots as controllable, normalized units of profitability.
Extra Life (and Decay) celebrates hospitality as a survival tool to fight morbid politics of isolation. An ode to the multitude, the illegible, the unmeasurable.

Stéphanie Lagarde is a visual artist and filmmaker. Her works explore human strategies of occupation and the control of space throughout systems of objects, signs, and political/social structures. She creates conflicting scenarios from assemblages of sounds, images, and texts drawn from multiple sources. Her films have been presented at festivals such as International Film Festival Rotterdam, Transmediale, Berlin Atonal, DocsMX, and Arkipel Jakarta.

Director Stéphanie Lagarde. Screenplay Stéphanie Lagarde. Cinematography Enrico Floriddia, Constantin Jopeck, Stéphanie Lagarde, Théo Levillain, Pieter van der Schaaf, Rune Ségaut, Clémence Warnier. Editing Stéphanie Lagarde. Music Jaike Stambach. Sound Design Arno Ledoux. Sound Collective. Make-Up Cameron White. Producer Stéphanie Lagarde. Executive Producer Stéphanie Lagarde. Co-Producers Daan Milius, Tim Rutten, Hans van Hezik. Production company Stéphanie Lagarde (Paris, France). With Isabelle Lagarde, Stéphanie Lagarde, Suzanne van der Schaaf, Rachele Borghi, Teresa Castro, Enrico Floriddia, Sophie Lapalu, Sarah Netter, Janna Zhiri.

Films: 2018: Déploiements / Deployments (16 min.). 2019: Rocky Tales Of Occupation (15 min.). 2021: Minimal Sway While Starting My Way Up (16 min.). 2025: Extra Life (and Decay).

The screening dates for EXTRA LIFE (AND DECAY) on berlinale.de