No Longer / Not Yet (France) by Jacquelyn Elder

The Auteur Cinema Archive proudly welcomes No Longer / Not Yet, the remarkable observational documentary by American-born, Paris-based filmmaker and choreographer **Jacquelyn Elder**, to its growing collection celebrating singular voices in contemporary independent cinema.

Winner of Best Documentary Short at the Liminal Dance Film Festival in Washington D.C. and selected for festivals including Cinedans, Doc.Boston, Dallas Dance Film Festival, Winter Film Festival New York, Montpellier Indie Film Festival, Cannes International Film Week, and several international exhibitions, No Longer / Not Yet is a quietly mesmerizing exploration of a moment that audiences almost never witness.

Rather than documenting dance itself, Elder turns her camera toward the fragile interval immediately before performance begins. Standing in wings, corridors and backstage spaces, dancers prepare to cross the invisible threshold separating private concentration from public exposure. It is a fleeting moment suspended between rehearsal and performance, certainty and doubt, solitude and collective experience.

Drawing on her own years as a performer with the Martha Graham Dance Company and later collaborations with artists including Boris Charmatz, (LA)HORDE, Rachid Ouramdane, Maud Le Pladec, and Liz Santoro, Elder possesses an instinctive understanding of this liminal space. Rather than explaining it, she simply observes.

The result is an extraordinarily patient film that trusts the expressive power of bodies, breathing, silence and anticipation. Every subtle gesture—a hand adjusting clothing, a quiet glance, a deep inhale—becomes part of an emotional choreography preceding the visible choreography on stage.

The filmmaker's observational approach is inseparable from her own experience as a dancer. As she explains, filming required becoming "almost invisible," allowing performers to remain fully immersed in their own rituals without interference. It is this ethics of observation that gives the documentary its remarkable authenticity.

Auteur Cinema Archive curator Kris De Meester explains why the film deserved inclusion:

"What impressed me most about No Longer / Not Yet is its confidence in observation. Jacquelyn Elder never feels the need to dramatize, explain or manipulate what we are seeing. Instead, she patiently allows these invisible moments to unfold in real time, trusting that the emotional truth already exists within them.

The pacing is exquisite. The film understands that anticipation can be every bit as compelling as performance itself. It transforms waiting into cinema, revealing that the most profound drama often happens before anything has officially begun.

As filmmakers we often chase climactic moments, but Elder reminds us that there is enormous beauty in quiet preparation. Her camera discovers an entire emotional landscape hidden backstage—a place where vulnerability, discipline, fear and courage coexist. It is a beautiful example of observational filmmaking at its purest."

The title itself perfectly captures the film's subject. Performers are no longer rehearsing, yet not yet performing. They inhabit a temporary psychological territory where identity briefly dissolves before being reconstructed in front of an audience.

Visually restrained and emotionally precise, the documentary never interrupts this delicate state with interviews or commentary. Instead, Elder allows the dancers' physical presence to become the narrative itself. In doing so, she reveals that performance begins long before the first movement is seen.

Beyond its focus on dance, No Longer / Not Yet becomes a meditation on transition itself. Every human being knows moments of standing at a threshold—before stepping into the unknown, before exposing oneself, before becoming visible. Elder's film gives cinematic form to that universal experience with remarkable sensitivity.

With its elegant pacing, profound empathy, and unwavering trust in observation, No Longer / Not Yet is a quietly extraordinary work of documentary cinema. The Auteur Cinema Archive is honoured to preserve this unique portrait of the hidden emotional architecture behind artistic performance, ensuring that Jacquelyn Elder's remarkable debut reaches new audiences around the world.