Program 4
Q. & A.
Moderator: Binita Mehta: Professor of French Emerita at Manhattanville College where she taught courses in French language, literature, and film.
Guests : Nathalie Berger (Professeur Département de Cinéma HEAD, Genève, Suisse)
Raquel Sancinetti: Filmmaker of Madeleine
Johanna Makabi: Filmmaker of Grâce
Program 4
Grâce - Johanna Makabi, 2022, 14’, France
Grâce, 8 years old, hates her neighborhood, she hates cheerleading and today she decided to join her father in space.
Dream on Leon - Roger Gariepy, 2021, 8’, Québec/Canada
Léon is old,: his body is letting him down. And so, he sleeps. Yet above all, Léon dreams. Of love and sausages, of freedom and running wild. A real dog’s life.
D’un feu secret - A.T.Bonaiuto, 2023, 4’, USA
“D’un feu secret” is a Baroque piece by Michel Lambert written in the 1600s. and interpreted by Cécile McLorin Salvant (franco-american jazz vocalist)
The Botanist - Floriane Zoundi, 2022, 9’, Burkina-Faso
A specialist in tropical plants, Rayann, 32, is a brilliant scientist who has had an exemplary career. But he loses his family in a terrorist attack. Since then, Rayann has lived away from the world until the day he is taken hostage in his house by terrorists pursued by the authorities.
Out of survival instinct, he plans to neutralize them using his knowledge of plants.
The truth about Alvert, the last dodo -Nathan Clément, 2022, 17’, Réunion-France/Switzerland
On the island of Reunion, Lunet and his grandfather Dadabé set on a quest to turn a hen into a dodo bird, whose magic feathers might save the boy’s seriously ill mother.
Madeleine - Raquel Sancinetti, 2023, 15’, Québec/Canada
Every week, Raquel (41), a Brazilian immigrant, visits her friend Madeleine (107) in her retirement home in Montreal and tries to convince her to get out of the house. The senior woman refuses she has nothing else to do outside. Raquel doesn't give up and finds a way to bring Madeleine with her on a road trip to the sea. The result is a journey that plays with reality and fiction and brings a reflection on life, death, and the certainty that there is always something to learn along the way.
Those without whom the earth will not be the earth -David Shongo, 2022, 5’, Democratic Republic of the Congo
In the town of Kipushi, next to the large city of Lubumbashi, we discover an artificial desert which is the result of years of pollution due to the exploitation of Katanga's first mine. This barren land, colored with different shades of pastel and decorated with waste, is distinguished by its paradoxical beauty.
Ya la terre (This is Land) - Nadine Otsobogo, 2023, 9’, Gabon
THIS IS LAND, tells the story of the link between Brice, a young Gabonese farmer, and the
land he cultivates in the surroundings of Libreville. An environment where increasing urbanization threatens agricultural land. Through its narration, the film explores themes of transmission and the relationship between man and nature, offering a view into the daily life of a farmer in the city. Ya la terre, tells the story of the relationship with the land of Brice, a young Gabonese farmer who does peri-urban agriculture in Libreville.
La vie en prose - Cidic Frank Mboumi Kokmegne, 2022, 9’, Cameroon
Dream is a young man passionate about art and motivated by the burning desire to become a recognized painter. After a long journey strewn with failures, he found himself on the verge of depression, immersed in a multitude of questions. One day during a visit to an art museum, Dream is transported inside a painting. There, he undertakes a fantastic journey at the end of which he promises to hold on to his dream.
From one painting… to another - George Schwizgebel, 2023, 3’, Switzerland-France
Two paintings that relate to each other, or the representation of a woman of color in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Olympia (1863) by Edouard Manet is a painting in which we see a naked woman staring confidently at the viewer and behind her a black maid holding a bouquet of flowers no doubt offered by an admirer.
In reference to Olympia, Félix Vallotton painted La Blanche et la Noire (1913) which shows a young naked white woman, and next to her a dressed black woman, probably her partner, who is smoking a cigarette.