Fanny  Bastien - The call of the wild

It  is fitting that three planetary fire signs were aligned when  German-born Fanny Bastien entered this world. Fanny’s  biography below details the extraordinary life of this French-speaking  actress and performer.

When she was just 14 and a half, Fanny left her family  and home, supported by her friends and loved ones, on a  quest to find out what her role and mission on this earth  might be. Fanny was looking for a ‘renaissance’,  a re-birth; to forge a new life for herself and complete  her education in the ‘school of life’. The only  element missing was how to go about achieving this. To prepare  herself for this metaphysical journey, Fanny took with her  three books that she deemed essential - a book by Jack London,  another by Carson MacCullers, and Theodore Sturgeon’s  work, The Healing Crystal. These books were to travel everywhere  with her.

After some time spent seemingly ‘moving forward without  knowing exactly where I was headed’ and trying her  hand at various small jobs, Fanny found what she was looking  for in the form of a regional dance school. She tried for  the entrance exam, was accepted, and stayed for a year.  Finally in complete harmony with herself, Fanny appeared  in several performances, discovering the very physical work  demanded by dance, and enjoying her new awakening to this  art form. For Fanny, a natural progression from dance was  to the Fratellini circus school. "It was a childhood  dream", explains Fanny, "Dancing on a high wire  above the whole world…it was like a bridge that linked  me to the universe.”

Several other artistic projects followed until Fanny discovered  the theatre. She earned her stripes alongside Vera Greg,  John Strasberg and Jack Waltzer. Fanny was later welcomed  into the famous Théâtre du Lucernaire in Paris  where she appeared in a play by the young writer Jean Marc  Lonval. The next exciting move came after a meeting with  the surrealist writer and producer Arrabal, who gave her  a role in his film « Le  cimetière des voitures ». Following that,  Fanny was spotted by Jacques Fansten, who offered her the  chance to star in« Dorothée  danseuse de corde », a television film adapted  from the novel by Maurice Leblanc that tells the story of  a circus tightrope dancer who dances on a wire that stretches  across the world.

The realm of theatre and cinema is a world Fanny is totally  at home in. Following these first forays into cinema, her  career evolved as though charmed, as she found herself making  one film after another. Fanny successfully navigated between  art house and mainstream cinema, starring with French actors  Gérard Jugnot, Richard Berry and Bernard Giraudeau.  On an international level she worked alongside Anthony Quinn,  Donald Sutherland, Yurgen Prochnov, Robert Powell, Patrick  Fierry, Annie Girardot, Mika Kaurismaki, Jacques Doillon,  Brahim Staki and Edouard Niermance (see filmography  for more details). At the start of her cinematic career,  Fanny’s choice of roles was very diverse, and tended  towards characters on the edge of society - extreme, vivid  characters. “It’s my way of talking about these  people and showing my appreciation for them” explains  Fanny. As Tolstoy famously expressed, ‘the true mission  of the artist is to enable Man to love life in all its facets’.

In person, Fanny is animated and lively. Her face is luminous  and she has an inner clarity. She retains something childlike  about her, and, like a teenager, she is prone to bursts  of laughter. When questioned, she speaks philosophically  about her life, painting an intriguing picture of how she  likes to live, “I sleep on a map of the world, I sleep  on rolls of film, I sleep on stage…I sleep on a bed  of rosemary. I walk each day, I love listening to sounds,  to the trees.” When asked about the cinema and acting  she replies, “… [For me they represent many  things] emotion, space, light, innovation, and communication.  [Acting] is a profession I love because it’s my life  and one that I’ve chosen. I can be both musician and  conductor.”

Later in life Fanny was inspired to created a space for  artistic expression and creation, a space where artists  could meet, for art, theatre, and artistic ‘happenings’.  Called ‘Damned’, the hip hangout was originally  conceived for her close Berber friend and stylist, Najet.

In 1988, just before the Perestroika, Fanny travelled to  Moscow to promote « Poussière  d’ange », a film by Edouard Niermance (Prix ROMY SCHNEIDER). Whilst  abroad, she fell in love with Russia and with a Russian  man. What followed this trip was an overwhelming silence  that was to last for seven years. During this time Fanny  travelled, crossing the planet like a migrating bird. Fanny  reappeared in the artistic milieu, disappeared, and little  by little, distanced herself from France.

In 1994 Fanny returned to her home country and became involved  with Denis Sellem, a friend and founder and president of  the Edouard  Kalifat  association for humanitarian research, an organisation  supported by the International Federation of the League  for Human Rights (F.I.D.H.) that was mandated to find missing  people - soldiers, members of the resistance, deportees  - that had disappeared in the former USSR. Today Fanny is  a member of the Honorary Committee of the association. In  2001, Fanny left for Russia once again, undertaking research  on a celebrated early-20th century Russian revolutionary.  Such a move was not unusual for Fanny, who has a passion  for sociology, ethnology and the indigenous peoples that  she claims to be a part of. She explains her interest thus:  “I live life like a maiden voyage. My work as an actor  channels me, and constantly awakens me to what it is to  be human. My work also incites me to respect my life and  that of others a little more. If I take time out from the  stage and the artistic way of life for a while, it is so  I can come back improved, and bring something else, another  dimension, to my work.

Fanny  is also philosophical about her role in this life and says  of her birth, “When the big ‘moment of light’  came, I like to think it was as though I was propelled like  a meteorite into a dark forest. I owe a lot of my character  to my mixed blood – I am the great grand-daughter  of a manual labourer and that’s something I always  remind myself of; it’s something that I cherish and  which is very important to me. My name, Bastien, is like  a ‘bastion’, a fortress… [Maybe that’s  where my strength comes from]. But above all, I am a child  of Nature.”