L'Image d'aprés

Thierno Souleymane Diallo sets out with his camera in search of the birth of filmmaking in Guinea. Charming and determined, he traces his country’s film heritage and history and reveals the importance of film archives.

This debut film by Alain Kassanda starts off as a process of self-examination: How well does he really know his grandparents? How true are his ideas about his birth country DR Congo, whose national identity was partly molded by the Belgian colonizers? And, by extension, how much does he know about himself? In Colette et Justin, Kassanda travels through time and his own past, in the process bringing postcolonial Congo to evocative life.

At the outskirts of Paris, in a rapidly-changing suburb, a group of Romanian families are searching for a place to live. From their abandoned village, to the demolished slum and occupied houses, their quest weaves together a common history, forged through solidarity and marked by displacement. Accompanying them on their journey, we build this film as an alternative habitable space.

My name is Gabriel and I live in Taipei. I have lost my wife during an assault. A red-haired man came to me, he smelt of fried fish. He had a gun and he shot my family. Since, I feel empty as if I had a hole in the head.

At the end of the Middle Ages, in Florence, Italy, a revolt of the poorest textile workers, the Ciompi, upsets the city and succeeds in overthrowing the government. In Florence, I film in their footsteps to bring out the ghosts of this revolt. In the industrial suburbs, I discover the echoes in the present, in the modern textile factories where immigrant workers are exploited. In Paris, I dialogue with the militant researcher who made the history of the revolt. Together we question the political stakes of writing history in the construction of a fertile collective memory.

“Four unaligned rows, 37 faces turned towards the camera lens. Autumn 1958, a family of Breton peasants in their Sunday best, gathered around the eldest. Smartly dressed for the photo. A modest living honestly earned by laborious work”. This is what the narrator proclaims at the beginning of the film, leading us to see things through his eyes. The photo, taken on the occasion of the golden wedding anniversary of the director’s grandparents, is the catalyst of Ordinary Landscape and the symbol of a way of life that is now gone.

Mr K works for «Pastagel», a miraculous product which keeps your hair perfectly smooth and shiny all day long. Mr K tries to be neat, but his hair is rebellious and doesn’t stay in place, perhaps just like him?

Hassan recalls the first night that Jellaz became his place of shelter. After burying his parents and two brothers, he rested his head at the foot of their graves, fell into a deep sleep, and felt his soul fly. Forty years later, Hassan is the guardian of Jellaz, stationed at the crossroads of two worlds. During the day, we follow Hassan as he greets both the dead and living as well as maintains the space as required - he gardens, builds, cleans, and helps with burial ceremonies. Sometimes he visits crowded neighborhood cafés and blends into life among the living. The injustices and misery that he witnesses outside of Jellaz intrude upon the joy and hope that he feels every day in his enchanted workspace, home, and eventually, deathbed. And then there is Sabrine. She knows what it is like to live a rough and precarious life, and she too is looking for an earthly companion. As Hassan prepares for his own life after death, he shares with us his notes on mercy, memory, and love.