Ce n’était pas la bonne montagne, Mohammad

vidéo, 2019, 28 min 30

Production Le Fresnoy - Studio National des Arts Contemporains

A hooded figure is shipwrecked on the surface of a silent sea, made up of forgotten words and stories like that of Mohammad, enclosed inside a bottle, adrift among the waves. The protagonist’s boat, after wandering at length, finds a landing in the desert. Among the sands shaken by the wind, a herd of antelopes chooses it as a guide, in a world full of pitfalls and suffering. Death is the only constant companion on their journey beyond the arid plains.

Mili Pecherer, making her debut in digital animation, developed the project of It Wasn’t the Right Mountain, Mohammad by replicating the structure of a video game. Once the scenario was built, she went through it herself, defining the narrative development of the work. The biblical suggestions of Isaac’s sacrifice, on the top of Mount Moriah, are transported beyond the space and time of Genesis, into a lonely and desolate landscape, where no one is innocent anymore.