DER Documentary

The Heart's Nebula (La nébuleuse du cœur)

by Jacqueline Veuve
color, 90 min, 2005

Pricing information and conditions

A trip through the heart. A poetic, moving, cruel, ironic, at times a cynical trip. A trip that takes us deep into the heart of the film maker, into her aches, her joys, her medical problems, among them the placing of a pacemaker. It gives her an excuse to take a closer look at other hearts: the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the small mummified heart of Louis XVII and its weird wanderings, the heart of a transplantee. How does one live with someone else's heart? Hearts of sugar, hearts of gold in the Brussel's Heart Museum. Chicken, beef, and quail hearts at the butcher's. The heart of a surgeon who grafts hearts compared to a gardener's who grafts trees. The trips ends in the Ice Palace with a poem enjoining us to donate our hearts.

"That sudden weakness of my heart, two years ago, brought me closer to death. I realized I was mortal, that my allotted span was shrinking, sadly shrinking away. Death? Ending as a small pile of dust or as a skeleton? Unable to think, unable to love, to become or not to become a wandering soul. What would I do, what would I change during the scant years I still had to live? Love more? Visit Easter Island? The fact is that I've not changed anything but hearing of physical heart problems does bother me. 'He died from a heart failure, an infarct, a heart attack...' I now relate to each of other peoples' heart stories" — Jacqueline Veuve

"The Heart's Nebula is a beautiful example of a personal filmic essay in which the filmmaker's personal situation launches her on a journey, to explore, discover and understand things that profoundly concern her. Veuve tackles the heart with a broad vision, which encompasses all of its dimensions; and while travelling through its physical, clinical, spiritual, mythical, poetic labyrinths, while discovering the corners of this infinite galaxy, we discover the immense vitality of her wakened heart." — Vlado Škafar, Catalogue Kino OTOK4, Isola Cinema, Izola, 2007

Film Festivals, Screenings, Awards
Festival Locarno
Festival Cinéma du Réel, Paris, 2005
Isola (Slovénie) 2007