Lokmotiva as organisation that supports and coordinates Mobility exchange programme as part of the Decentralised cooperation LN/MK, found his film project very interesting and important and decided to support Arnaud’s research by providing him with information and contacts of musicians and festivals from Macedonia that can be valuable for his project.

Arnaud Lanouiller is born in Avranches, Lower Normandy. He studied art, cinema and multimedia, after which he was working as video editor during 3 years, being in the same time extremely sensitive to many kind of music. As curious observer and deeply humanist, his research is oriented towards fascinating and passionate people, trying to extract the most sensitive narratives about history, working, feelings and human communication.
The idea for the project developed after his first visit to Balkans in 2013. Being in touch with different people and having possibilities to listen Gajda, Kaval, Tambura, Old-town songs he was inspired to make a documentary film about traditional music and its importance to stay alive in the society as valuable cultural heritage. After getting back to France he worked on script and planed his research for 2014. In his project he investigates how traditional music can be useful in contemporary ordinary life, the comprehension of lyrics as reflection of life and the functional mode of traditional songs, the reaction of the audience and what is the shared feelings while listening to the music. 

During his thee month research he visited Bulgaria (focusing his research on women voices and choirs, where he met Elena Kutev – ethnomusicologist, the Bistishki Babi’s ensemble and Mila Santova – anthropologist) and Bosnia (focusing his research on Sevdah music, where he met Damir Imamovic, Vreco Bozo, Miro and Arif players and Amira Medunjanin).
In Macedonia with the support of Lokomotiva he had working meetings with Ljubojna (Vera Miloshevska and Olvier Josifovski) that enabled contacts and meetings with Sintezis (Marjan Jovanovski and Goce Uzunovski), Angele Dimovski and with many musicians students, local artists, cultural institutions and more. Also he visited, documented and had interviews with musicians at the festivals: Galicka Svadba, Pece Atanasovski in Dolneni municipality and Ilindenski Denovi in Bitola. Besides his research, Arnaud spend some time in Skopje where he got couple of really good friends, become familiar with Meleem organisation and appreciate the local food, way of thinking, trying to be part of Macedonia which he feel like his adoptive country.

After getting back to France, based on the research he will more develop the script for the film and edit a firs film pilot.  Also, he will work on fundraising that can support the project. Film is planed to be finished in 2016 and that diffused in festivals, events, and cinema theatres. This film can be valuable for the Macedonia/Balkan – Lower Normandy cooperation in the filed of culture. 

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