Pierre Cattan
A prolific producer, the founder of the transmedia studio Small Bang is developing new forms of storytelling, at the crossroads of the physical and digital worlds. From Cinemacity to Phallaina, Pierre Cattan is the leader of an orchestra without limits.
Updated on 21/02/2019
2 min
Pierre Cattan is a producer, author and journalist. Co-founder of the news and styles magazine TOC, of which he was editor-in-chief from 2003 to 2007, since 2010 he has continued his journalistic work as an advisor to the editors of Usbek & Rica. But it is towards filmmaking and production that this jack-of-all-trades has been headed since 2008, with the film Are You Bouddha?, broadcast in short episodes by France 4.
In 2012, he founded the transmedia studio Small Bang, dedicated to "documentary and/or fictional narrative, visual arts and computer code" across different mediums, both digital and physical. Some of his notable productions include the apps Cinemacity (2013), Morphosis (2015) and Phallaina (2016).
Films, animations, sound experiences, apps and websites, events, objects, print: Pierre Cattan's Small Bang studio thinks about production work in a multifaceted and cross-sectional way.
This experimental space based in the heart of Belleville, Paris, while remaining a collective focused on innovation, explores new forms of narrative, connecting the physical and digital worlds, from the participatory science of BirdLab to the Open Bidouille Camps. The app Cinemacity allows you to see excerpts of movies at the location where they were filmed in Paris, while Phallaina, the very first "moving comic strip" (“bande défilée”) for tablets and smartphones, uses horizontal scrolling, creating something between a graphic novel and an animated film.
Between 2009 and 2012, Pierre Cattan co-produced and contributed to the script of the animated documentary Imagined Earths (“Les Terres imaginées”), which explores different visions of the world, from pygmy cosmogonies to string theory. He also co-produced the interactive video Happy World: Burma, the dictatorship of the absurd (“Happy-World: Birmanie, la dictature de l’absurde”), which won the Orson Welles award for best documentary at the California Film Awards in 2010.
A founding member of PXN, the association of Digital Experience Producers, he works to increase the visibility of French excellence internationally, by speaking regularly at creation or project development workshops in France and abroad. He recently accompanied and presented his "moving comic strip" Phallaina at the 2018 Taipei Book Fair.
- 2003
2003
Pierre Cattan founds the news and styles magazine TOC, of which he will remain the editor until 2007.
- 2009
2009
He joins Cinquième Étage Production and produces, most notably, Happy World, a satire of the Burmese regime filmed by Gaël Cordier and Tristan Mendès-France.
- 2012
2012
He founds the transmedia studio Small Bang, with offices in Belleville, Paris.
- 2013
2013
Pierre Cattan produces the app Cinemacity, a programme of cinematographic walks in Paris.
- 2016
2016
He produces the app Phallaina, an interactive comic by Marietta Ren.
Phallaina by Pierre Cattan is presented as part of “Reading Machines”, an exhibition dedicated to innovative books which tours internationally across the French cultural network abroad.
It is also part of the selection available on futurlivre.fr, a platform that collects and promotes works falling under the umbrella of innovative books.