HUNTER NIGHTS
On the set of Hunter Nights
(July 2017)
“I wanted to make a film the way one writes a book — to break free from the tyranny of the ‘society of the spectacle’ and the compulsion for publicity and visibility, and to rediscover the secret, artisanal creative process I have always loved.
After ten years as a highly visible internet artist —having become virtual against my will, and often reduced to a caricature — I unplugged my machines and left. I discovered rivers and forests.
Making Hunter Nights reconciled me with the creator I used to be —with his body, his limitations, and his madness. It is a work of fiction infused with reality —with the bodies, places, and stories I encountered during those years of reconnection shared with Thierry Chollet-Berger, my longtime collaborator.
For seven years, the film took shape in seclusion —slowly, artisanally — like a work one inhabits rather than merely produces. It embodies my relationship with the creative process: what it demands, what it gives birth to, what it transforms, and what it destroys.”
About the director
From a young age, Pierre has written, composed songs, and created videos; he has amassed a vast collection of sounds and images, using them in works that blend the present and the past. This body of work — fueled notably by his grandfather’s Super 8 archives — was showcased between 2006 and 2014 through exhibitions and concerts combining music, video, and performance art, most notably in pieces such as Teenage Love, Ooh Yeah (The Story of Pierre Pascual) and Visage impassible.
While deepening his artistic experiments—particularly with the early Portraits sonores (Portraits in Sound) created in Paris in 2009 — Pierre Pascual pursued a musical career as a singer, composer, and producer for the projects Cartel Couture and Chose Chaton. He later reverted to his real name for the single Sous les sycomores and the 2012 album Premier Amour — tribute to the creative, bullied child he once was; that child appears on the ring worn by the dreamlike pop creature featured on the album cover.
This period was marked by numerous music videos directed by Pierre—such as Deneuve Danse, Mi novio es un zombi, and "Lâche les chiens" — creations that laid the groundwork for his burgeoning interest in cinema.
After a hiatus dedicated to writing, Pierre decided to make his first film: the story of a visual artist caught between dream and reality, family archives and a desire for fiction. Hunter Nights — anchored by the book Rose Turningham, published that same year in a limited edition specifically for the film — was shot between 2017 and 2019, based on a screenplay co-written with Thierry Chollet-Berger. Since 2020, through the publishing house Le Sélénite, Pierre Pascual has been engaged in publishing and mentoring young authors, focusing on writing, creative work, and the passing on of knowledge. This work informs a broader reflection on independent creative forms and the process of guiding a creative work from its inception to its publication or release.
Alongside the November 2026 release of Hunter Nights, he is preparing a new album inspired by the film; its lead single 'Tous les soirs quand je suis seule) will be released on October 7.
He is also preparing the publication of several autofictional novels that span the end of a turbulent century — tracing the journey from childhood to adulthood amidst technological shifts, desire, the brutality of the world, and the process of self-discovery.
