Synopsis
The car of a photographer on assignment in Jamaica breaks down in the middle of a ghetto, a notoriously violent area. Forced to wait for days until his car is repaired, he retreats into himself, in shock. Then, gradually, he begins to open his eyes, relearns to listen, and accepts being elsewhere. Now, it’s impossible for him to take back home photographs of a pretty woman on the beach. They would say nothing about Jamaica.
A word from Tënk
A black box to enter the narrator's brain and rewind past events; a scorching sun in a saturated orange hue… It's hard not to see the future Hollywood director's touch in this short film made in 1994 for the National Film Board of Canada. Denis Villeneuve plays with the codes of science fiction here to better question representations. The voice-over couldn't be clearer: "Reality is not a movie. Get out of your images! Stop your cinema! Wake up!" This is followed by a dive into the behind-the-scenes through this documentary essay, a real attempt to approach what life is like in the Trench Town ghetto. Without meeting Miss World 1976, we encounter dogs wandering the streets, a mechanic inventing missing parts of a repair manual, and above all, a disaffected youth seeking work and singing their ideas as time seems to endlessly stretch. A cinematic gem to be savored without moderation.
Éva Tourrent
Filmmaker and Tënk France's Artistic Director
