Marie Balaresque

Marie Balaresque is a French filmmaker, a graduate of the directing programme at ENSAV — École Nationale Supérieure d'Audiovisuel in Toulouse, a leading public institution in France for training in cinema and audiovisual arts, and the only one of its kind in the Occitanie region.

During her studies, she directed several projects that quickly revealed a sensitive and narrative approach to cinema. Most notably, she made Fusion, a graduation short film presented at the 35th Corrida de l'ENSAV in 2022, alongside Une histoire de plage (A Beach Story), a personal Master's 1 project — a title that, perhaps unknowingly at the time, foreshadowed her relationship with coastal landscapes as a space for creation. These early works reflect a cinematic voice that combines hands-on practice with theoretical reflection, a hallmark of ENSAV graduates.

Now based in Paris, Marie Balaresque works as an assistant director, collaborating on theatrical and audiovisual projects where she deepens her understanding of dramaturgy and collective creative processes. In parallel, she works as an educator at the Cinémathèque française, sharing her expertise in filmmaking and her love of cinema with young audiences and students, at one of the world's most iconic institutions dedicated to the preservation and dissemination of film heritage.

As part of the Les Gardiennes de la Mer artistic residency at Résidences Rocabella, Marie Balaresque returns to a landscape that has already run through her work: the beach, the shoreline, the space between land and water. It is no coincidence that one of her earliest cinematic projects already bore the title Une histoire de plage (A Beach Story) — as though the coastline had always been, for her, a space filled with stories waiting to be told.

This residency gives her the opportunity to step away from the roles of assistant and educator and to find herself fully as an author, face to face with a territory that summons memory, sensory experience, and narrative all at once. Between the shifting light of the Mediterranean and the stories carried by those who inhabit it, Marie Balaresque explores new documentary or fiction film projects, nourished by a cinematic gaze forged at ENSAV and refined through her encounters with theatre and film heritage.