2013
UN EFFET DE JUNGLE
These videos explore the imaginary potential linked to the jungle. An imaginariness that replaces proven facts that are not easy to admit.
Simon-Pierre Coftier
Palanakili
2010, 9 mn 40
In the school of an Amerindian village in Guyana, children are doing reading exercises. In this unlikely area on the edge of the Amazon forest, as much a place of apprenticeship as of acculturation, the mythical tale of the arrival of the first white man on Amerindian shores rings out. Collected by ethnologists, transcribed, translated and printed as a book, this myth, issuing from an oral culture, has moved from the living experience of narrative to the silent space of the printed page. The children restore blood and flesh to this text, but, for all this, oralness remains subordinate to what is written. S-P C
Nicolas Carrier
Mr. Robinson
2012, 7 mn 26
A man explores Palm House in Belfast, a winter garden built in 1840, and re-awakens the imaginary potential of tropical jungle. NC
Anne Durez
Mlua
2007, 11 mn 58
A man is gradually blinded by rain as he is absorbed in reading José Saramango’s book Blindness. In the Baham dialect in western Cameroon, Mlua means an atmospheric sensation associated with fog, and a lack of visibility. AD
Laura Huertas Millan
Sin Dejar Huella
2009, 2 mn 58
In voice-over, a man describes the accidental death of a worker in his neighbourhood during a shoot-out. The neighbours, who witness the event, do their utmost to erase all traces before the rescue services arrive. As a counterpoint to this story, we see appear a landscape and a woman. She moves toward the camera singing a bullerengue, a traditional Colombian song of the cimarrones, the first rebel slaves. This powerful song and her presence clash visibly with the tale of the death chanted by the voice, as if to combat or resist it. LHM
Basim Magdy
Time Laughs Back at You Like a Sunken Ship
2012, 9 mn 31
An enclosed environment of isolated preservation is the setting. A man sits with his mysterious reflective device. What he sees through its eyeholes resembles what is reflected on its surface. Time passes in its own shadow as reality and its representation merge. The man waits for something to happen. A ship dances on the horizon. Intricate ancient ruins and monuments intertwine with failed modern societies. Light leaks through the camera and onto the film, creating a sense of poetic unexpectedness. The protagonist gets bored, stands up and starts walking around in circles. The soundtrack becomes more intense. Nothing happens. He sits down again as night starts falling. The last scene – the longest – shows time consuming itself in its own darkness as a tree swings back and forth. BM